The looming Federal government shutdown is really bringing back the memories.
(OBTW, I say, SHUT 'ER DOWN . . . our government and this President need to come to terms with living and spending beyond our means).
The Clinton administration didn't just screw-me-over-after-the-fact on the full enforcement of my National Health Service Corps (NHSC) agreement with Randolph Medical Associates/Randolph Hospital. Nope. My Federal loan repayment deal in Asheboro was almost torpedoed before I even began "serving time" in the good ole hometown.
I signed on to begin as RMA's first Pediatrician in May 1995.
During recruitment, I submitted all the paperwork and was told that all the i's were dotted and t's crossed for my public service obligation to begin counting down as soon as I started working in Asheboro (or very shortly thereafter). But with the government shut down that fall, the Federal government started sending out notices to new NHSC providers that their fledgling agreements were null and void.
The message was that we'd have to re-apply (?!?). And since we were already recruited and in place, we would probably not qualify to be "re-recruited".
In other words, NO LOAN REPAYMENT.
It was ABSURD, and a total bullshit bait-&-switch maneuver. Moreover, it did not fly - either with me or with Dr. Anderson (who had signed on under the same arrangement). Some fairly scathing correspondence with government officials ensued. Congressmen's office doors were rattled. Lawyers were (informally) consulted. When the political grandstanding in Washington died down, Dr. Anderson and I were suddenly back on the NHSC's rolls . . . not retroactively to "time already served" . . . but to begin in January 1996. My two-year obligation concluded in January 1998.
(And we know what happened in January 1998.)
At the time, since I had planned to make Asheboro a career, a turn of the screw on the front end (a matter of only a few months) didn't matter.
But in the wake of thirteen-years and multiple turns of THE SCREW, it matters now.
One of my theories pertaining to what colored some of (RMA Director) Mike Bridges and (RMA President) Steven Eblin's malevolent machinations way-back-when has always been that Dr. Kathleen Riley (their pet and favorite because she never said no to any of management's money-making schemes) wanted me and/or Dr. Anderson OUT of RMA/Asheboro so that she could qualify for the same deal we got from the NHSC . . . a deal I was informed she had actually forfeited (assuming penalties and interest) when she left another NHSC site in Eastern North Carolina (to work for RMA) without making prior arrangements.
After the government shutdown, we were told that RMA only qualified for two Pediatricians . . . not three. Dr. Riley was livid. To the best of my knowledge, at the time of my termination, the practice was still haggling with the government over this. Practice Director Bridges was very cagey about the situation when I asked questions.
Of course, after I "left" Asheboro not-of-my-own-accord, RMA lost its eligibility as an NHSC site . . . courtesy of multiple rounds of correspondence I sent to Federal officials (including Howard Coble) - ultimately culminating in a letter to then-Clinton DHHS Secretary Shalala (as a direct response to a request by the NHSC for feedback).
In other words, the Federal government found my correspondence and supporting documentation very credible - and took punitive action against RMA.
Alas, apart from making sure my malpractice tail was paid - nine months after the fact - the government did little else - despite their clear obligations to me under their own service agreement.
I've always suspected that Dr. Riley was able to complete her NHSC service obligation between the time I was fired (benefiting from the practice suddenly - and conveniently for Dr. Riley - being one doctor down), and the time the Feds removed RMA from their list of approved NHSC sites. I could be wrong. But I doubt it.
Of course, even if she didn't get back into the NHSC's program, she probably could've paid off her debt a whole lot faster anyway - when her salary suddenly jumped by MANY THOUSANDS of dollars - courtesy of a new physician reimbursement & incentive program adopted immediately after I was fired . . . her bonuses fed by the patients I was forced to leave behind - as Randolph Hospital LIED TO EVERYONE UNDER THE SUN ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON - AND OUR LOCAL DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND "NEWSPAPER" GAVE THEM A TOTAL PASS.
Even after getting BUSTED on their controlled affiliate's monopolize-the-Pediatric-"business"-for-themselves tactics, somehow Randolph Hospital still had the cahoones to sue me for "libel" over the content of my letter to Shalala.
And alas, the Federal government was nowhere to be found when that happened (so much for "whistle-blower protection"). If had not been for Dr. Anderson - and Dr. Toy - I might have been WAY up the legal creek.
The thing is that RMA's lawyers did not know about Anderson & Toy's letters when Randolph Hospital filed its despicable SLAPP-suit.
It wasn't Steve Schmidly's great lawyering that sent the hospital packing.
The Feds have likewise done absolutely nothing about Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin repeatedly lying their asses off in the discovery responses of their own "libel" lawsuit . . . in order to save the "non-profit"-hospital-that-fronted-their-every-malicious-act some money.
I digress. Since the days of Hillary's village, NOTHING has changed for NHSC doctors. It's glorified indentured servitude of the medical profession's youngest and most fiscally-disadvantaged . . . and in many places, it's a "revolving door" of 2-3 years . . . as the government only really cares about putting warm bodies in "under-served" areas, and does not fret so much about the stated mission of recruiting physicians in a fashion as to RETAIN them.
In the NHSC, physicians ARE "a dime a dozen", and new suckers are graduated every year.
Styling the old and stale as "reform", Obamacare paid exalted lip service and threw truckloads of new funding at the program.
My point is this: If the Federal government does shut down, new NHSC physicians need to be on the look-out for the same kind of stunts - courtesy of the Obama administration.
Don't count on the IRS, now charged with the oversight of things they are not nearly equipped to oversee, to have your back. They did not have mine.
You see, some things do not change.
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