NCH public forum on its new policy finds a skeptical audience

One of the area’s biggest hospitals had a public forum Wednesday morning regarding its new controversial policy where only its own doctors are in charge of a patient’s care. However, the outcry against the new program has been largely negative.

“Dr. Weiss is going to say everything is fine,” Florence Pelegrini said, a concerned citizen. “That’s a lot of baloney.”

That was the resounding feeling from Pelegrini and dozens of others in attendance at a NCH forum, which was lead by CEO Allen Weiss and his staff. They addressed the new Hospitalists pilot program.

“I met him coming in and I shook his hand and I said, ‘I want to know why this all about money,’ Pelegrini said. “‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘no, no, we’ll take your questions, all your questions after.’ He’s a lot of baloney. He’s a bad politician.”

“They want to have full control over the money and the patients coming in and what services they’re providing,” Dr. Larry said.

Some of the people attending said, Weiss left many of their questions unanswered. And that their main fear is the program will go hospital wide and shut out independent doctors completely, thereby taking away their choice of care.

But Weiss said, he wants hospital doctors to collaborate with private physicians and get the best results for the patients.

“Getting people better is what we do, we actually want to get the whole community healthier,” Weiss said. “We’ve been here for 63 years caring for the community and we want to be here for another 63 years and be completely responsive.”

But David Kramer said he is not buying it.

“You’re going to tell me that my doctor who contacted me at 5:39 in the morning when my test results came back because he watching it,” Kramer said. “Also because he knows how concerned I was about certain tests. Is the Hospitalists going to be doing that excuse me ‘hell no.'”