Part 1: According to The Detroit Free Press: October 1st, 2024, Detroit-based Henry Ford Health finalized its joint venture Monday with Ascension Michigan, becoming a single, $12 billion organization under the Henry Ford name as it competes in an increasingly consolidated health care market in Michigan.
This marks another example in Ascension's recent strategy involving selling off (or giving it away for pennies on the dollar) assets. There is another side to this matter though and it involves how the healthcare provider conducts its business (the wrong way).
Pump And Dumps: Ascension regularly dives into a market it has no experience in, buys up infrastructure, dumps patients, bills deceased patients, covers up million dollar misdiagnoses, runs afoul of local laws and disrespects its employees etc... After being called out for crimes and deciding it has reached the end of the road, it will sell the assets and exit the market place.
Ascension's problems are somewhat self perpetuating. 1) They are endemically corrupt from the start. 2) They give jobs, training and opportunities to Nurses & Doctors who really have no business pushing a mop or a broom in a hospital. 3) These staff recognize the corruption of the environment they thrive in and realize they are free to mimic their corporate masters, scheming up small time scams that pale in comparison to what the big boys are doing but wreck irreparable havoc in average people's lives, taking profits & cutting corners where possible. 3) When they get into trouble, these underlings will go their big brother and seek protection from responsibility and accountability, which Ascension is all too willing to provide. This is what I saw first hand as a patient and customer when I was misdiagnosed repeatedly after going to an Ascension ER in Birmingham, Alabama.
After instances of the above are replicated, amplified and magnified to a large degree, a hospital rebrand or selloff serves to help people forget any offenses or negative service that may have occurred, they simply tell the new customers (patients) "that was to old owners fault, we are under new management now". And of course the old owners are a couple states away: out of sight, out of mind.
In this latest Michigan deal, 17,000 Ascension employees will be retained and transition to Henry Ford Health, bringing its total workforce to about 50,000 people. And with the addition of Ascension's properties, Henry Ford now operates 550 sites of care. Not a word was spoken of much of the debt, risk, liability and problems Ascension faced in recent years in the state of Michigan. And the big question? Why exactly did Ascension decided to build up assets and leave a very lucrative pure growth market?
Henry Ford Health will soon either have to defend the bad actors and practices groomed under Ascension's tenure or undertake a widespread house cleaning of corrupt elements.
My own experience as a misdiagnosed patient (by 3 of their doctors (Julia
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