UNC Healthcare President Responds to Critics

Somewhere along the way, critics allege, North Carolina-based UNC Healthcare forgot about the love and focused only on profits. The message being sent, it appeared, was that if you were poor, old, and/or without insurance -– you couldn’t receive care at UNC.

All that changed, recently, when UNC system president Erskine Bowles agreed to modify and clarify the recent “no pay, no stay” policy.

Bowles was petitioned by Dr. John Hammond, a retired medical school faculty member, and Dr. Florence Soltys, an associate clinical professor of social work and medicine. The petition outlined several concerns about how poor, uninsured, and elderly patients are being treated – or, actually, not being treated.

The petition was signed by 1,100 individuals -– including medical school faculty, hospital staff and Orange County legislators Sen. Ellie Kinnaird and Reps. Joe Hackney and Verla Insko.

The move by Bowles corrects some misunderstandings promoted by UNC Healthcare chief Dr. William Roper. Armed with his Bowtie of Truthiness, Roper had told the News & Observer in mid-August that the notion the hospital had in any way moved away from its mission was "wrong, wrong, wrong.” Roper, however, changed his mind last week, going from “wrong, wrong, wrong” to “well, let’s think about this a minute.” At an August 29 meeting with Bowles, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser and top hospital and university administrators, Roper outlined several changes to address the concerns.

Among the changes are realigned messages to patients, removing language that seemed to suggest that payment in full would be necessary for treatment. There is also a planned backdown from what were perceived aggressive collection methods. “There's nothing wrong with trying to collect from people who just won't pay," he says. "What's wrong is trying to collect from people who can't pay," Hammond told North Carolina’s Independent Weekly.

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