Community Medical sues over trauma service interruption. Fresno doctors group pushes back
Community Medical Centers is suing a medical group and the head of a health system over issues that it says led to the interruption of trauma services a year ago.
The lawsuit was filed against Community Regional Medical Staff Medical Group and Scott Wells, who is the chief executive officer of the Sante Health System. Wells is being sued under his individual capacity, though, according to the lawsuit.
The suit for breach of contract, breach of good faith and fair dealing, and intentional contract interference was filed on Sept. 23 at the Fresno County Superior Court, and seeks a jury trial.
Wells, in a statement Monday afternoon, says the allegations in CMC’s lawsuit “are not only without legal merit, but also run counter to our demonstrated, long-time commitment to this community.”
“Sante is not a party to the contract in question, nor did we play any role in the temporary loss of neurosurgical trauma coverage at Community Regional Medical Center,” Wells says in the statement. “While we are disappointed to see this baseless and unnecessary attack against Sante and our physicians, we are confident that we will prevail.”
Trauma services were interrupted last year when another doctor group, the Central California Faculty Medical Group, announced that a contract for six neurosurgeons expired at midnight on Sept. 2, 2020. Stalled negotiations with CMC led to the discontinuation of critical trauma services for several days, and at least 21 patients had to be transferred to hospitals elsewhere across the state.
The trauma center at Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno is the only Level I trauma center between Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its elite trauma status was put at risk by the interruption of services, which came during the COVID pandemic and the Creek Fire.
The suit claims Community Regional Medical Staff Medical Group (CRMSMG) is the entity responsible for arranging and providing the on-call neurosurgery services to CMC and says CRMSMG terminated the services on Sept. 2.
CMC made no mention of CRMSMG last year when contract negotiations remained at loggerheads.
According to its statement, Sante provides services to CRMSMG.
The lawsuit claims CRMSMG is supposed to provide a 90-day notice of termination of services, but it alleges the hospital received a notice less than 32 hours prior to the services being terminated by CRMSMG.
The lawsuit alleges that while Wells has no position with CRMSMG, he communicated with CMC about the termination of services on behalf of CRMSMG.
CMC alleges it entered into an agreement with CRMSMG for on-call physician services in 2005, and the contract was fully restated in 2006, according to the lawsuit. The contract was amended from time to time.
The lawsuit makes no mention of whether the contract had any expiration date.
Michelle Von Tersch, a spokeswoman for CMC, said the neurosurgeons’ walkout “was not the result of an expired contract and Community should have had more notice to respond.”
According to the lawsuit, CMC was in negotiations with Central California Faculty Medical Group (CCFMG) during the spring and summer of 2020 for clinic-based services that had nothing to do with neurosurgery services.
On the morning of Sept. 1, Joyce Fields-Keene, chief executive officer for CCFMG, allegedly contacted CMC’s chief operating officer, Craig Wagoner, and informed him that the neurosurgeons who provided services to CMC through CRMSMG would stop providing those services at 5 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2020.
The lawsuit alleges there is “some suggestion” that Fields-Keene provided a 30-day notice to CRMSMG through Wells.
CMC, according to the lawsuit, believes Wells and the other defendants encouraged neurosurgeons to refuse to provide services at CMC’s trauma center. Sante said that didn’t happen.
“The complaint alleges that CRMSMG breached its obligation to provide on call neurosurgery services to Community Regional Medical Center (CRMC) over a year ago,” a statement from Sante reads. “In addition to its curious timing, lurid prose and inaccuracies, the complaint completely misunderstands and misstates the business relationship between CMC and CRMSMG.”
Von Tersch said the hospital had been busy managing the COVID pandemic, and it took time to assess the “extent and cost of a physician walkout and damages incurred.”
CRMSMG, according to the Sante statement, never had and “currently does not have an obligation to provide medical coverage to CMC other than by compensating physicians who had agreed to provide call to CMC facilities.”
“Its only obligation was to provide a payment mechanism to pass through compensation for taking call from the hospital to the various physicians who had agreed to be on-call,” the statement reads.
According to Sante’s statement, the interruption of trauma services was related to a disagreement between CMC and its neurosurgery provider, which it didn’t name.
“Once the neurosurgery provider was not agreeing to be on-call at CMC facilities, CRMSMG was contractually excused from providing those services under the 2006 Agreement,” the statement reads.
The lawsuit also alleges the defendants directly or indirectly spread “false assertions” to the media about CMC no longer being able to provide trauma services. But trauma services at CRMC did get suspended for several days.
“CMC managed to frustrate Defendants’ goal of shutting down the trauma center and denying members of our community access to that lifesaving care,” the lawsuit reads. “Specifically, CMC was able to locate and retain neurosurgeons and have them credentialed on an emergency basis.”
CMC was only able to retain temporary neurosurgeons after nearly two dozen patients had been transferred to other hospitals across the state.
By Sept. 15, 2020, most neurosurgeons providing services to CMC through CRMSMG resumed their care at the trauma center, according to the lawsuit.
On Sept. 15, CMC and CCFMG released a joint statement indicating both parties had reached a short-term agreement to fill the gap in services while negotiations were ongoing for a permanent contract. The joint statement made no mention of CRMSMG.
“CRMSMG played no role in the neurosurgery service interruption experienced by CMC in September 2020,” Sante’s statement reads. “Scott Wells played no role in either the neurosurgery service interruption or in any CRMSMG action.”
CMC is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, among other forms of relief. When asked for how much the hospital was seeking, Mary Lisa Russell, another spokeswoman at CMC, said that was mentioned in a statement and in the complaint, which doesn’t specify a dollar amount.
This story was originally published September 27, 2021 at 5:48 PM.
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