Vancouver’s ties to the Providence health care system date back more than 150 years.
After arriving at Fort Vancouver from Montreal, a group of nuns led by Mother Joseph and known as the Sisters of Providence incorporated in 1859. By 1891, the organization founded St. Elizabeth Hospital, the Northwest’s first permanent hospital and the precursor for what today is PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center.
While Providence no longer operates a hospital in Clark County, it maintains a dozen health care outlets in the region. Ranging from primary care to physical rehabilitation to elder care, the facilities carry on a tradition that started out of a desire for “the relief of needy and suffering humanity, in the care of orphans, invalids, the sick and poor.”
As a recent settlement with the state of Washington demonstrates, the organization has drifted far from that mission.
Providence Health & Services, which is based in Renton, has agreed to refund nearly $21 million in medical bills paid by low-income residents in Washington, along with erasing $137 million more in outstanding debt. The move, announced this month, follows accusations from the state that Providence overcharged those patients and then used aggressive tactics is seeking to collect payment.
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson says it is the largest settlement of its kind in the nation’s history. Ferguson, who is running for governor this year, also notes that it is the kind of consumer protection case his office would not have had the staffing to pursue in previous decades.
The gist: State law requires hospitals to provide financial assistance, known as charity care, to patients based on their income level. The Office of the Attorney General alleged that Providence withheld this information from patients and trained staff to not accept the answer when those patients said they could not pay.
Skeptics might claim that hospitals also have bills to pay in order to provide continuing care. But as Ferguson points out: “Hospitals — especially nonprofits like Providence — get tax breaks and other benefits with the expectation that they are helping everyone have access to affordable health care. When they don’t, they’re taking advantage of the system to their benefit.”
But that is not the only method in which Providence has skewed the system in a most uncharitable fashion.
According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, Providence CEO Rod Hochman is the state’s highest-paid health care executive, receiving total compensation package of $9.5 million in 2021. In previous years, his compensation reached nearly $11 million.
And in 2020, a New York Times investigation found that Providence obtained more than $500 million in government funding that was designed to help health care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Providence had more than $12 billion in cash reserves and earned approximately $1 billion a year in revenue from investments.
Providence is not the only business in which price gouging and corporate greed are evident. Nor is health care the only industry in which such actions work against the public interest.
But it is particularly galling to consider that the latest settlement involves taking advantage of extremely vulnerable people — low-income medical patients. And it is particularly disappointing to think that it comes from an organization tasked with carrying on a sterling legacy.
The guess here is that Mother Joseph would not approve of Providence’s corporate actions.
