Comments on: InlandPolitics: Arrowhead Regional Medical Center deteriorating – Part 3

By: S warner

S warner — Mon, 16 May 2011 21:01:49 +0000

My 68 yaer old mother was treated for burns on ear head neck chest and entire hand,she had plastic surgery, and skin grafting as well as shark skin grafting on fingers, I live in Illinois and was called 3 times by a doctor hershey to see when I was coming to get her that she was about ready to go home, I called when i was on my way to fly 10 hours and then drive another 150 to the hospital, I arrived and no one new any thing or when she was going home , I also advised them that I was informed she was being evicted and I had no information as to the situation at her home, I called to check on her the next day they allready discharged her without me being there I had to find someone to get there, not knowing her care or treatment or even any info on her condition by any one I was shocked to see her in such a horrible state of condition , returned for outpatient appt and was still not given any info and was run around with no proper procedure or paperwork to get supplies or info on care & hours of hell for mom, returned next day and explained still no supplies and , moms condition is getting worse and still afterall that 2 med supplies and 1 pharmacy cannot give me the proper supplies to care for wounds, the nurses and doctors were unprofessional and not qualified in or knowladgeable at all they were confused and giving us miss information this place is very dangerous and i intend on reporting my moms story and all the details to the news this place is a butcher shop ,Oh and she returns for skin grafting surgery tomorrow and plan on releaseing her i hour after surgery, I am Outraged and plan to bring this to the attention of the public and higher athorities. Oh and when I needed assistance with wheelchair and getting thru a door they asked “what did you need?” please! I had another family friend with me the whole time and we where shocked at the entire experience and never seen anything as bad as this before.

By: US Citizen

US Citizen — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:12:51 +0000

Update: During the filing for chapter 7 I had to gather up all the bills I received from ARMC and the San Bernardino Countys Central collections department. While I could match a portion of the collection letters I received from Central collections with the original billings I received from ARMC by using the 7 digit account numbers (ARMC does not assign a patient a single account number in which to bill to, you get a different account number for everything), there was another batch of letters I received from central collections that have completely different 8 digit account numbers and are asking for huge amounts of money as if they had totaled several of my bills all into one. Now you might think that sounds somewhat normal. The thing is that no where on the letter does it refer to what bills/account numbers were included in that total! Some might still say not a real big deal right? Well what do you say when you receive 3 different envelopes from Central collections on the very same day. You open them up and notice that all 3 letters have the same date on them and list the same exact amount of something like $77,500.00 BUT WAIT! EACH LETTER HAS A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT NUMBER! Then a month later I receive 2 more letters on the same day with the same date, an amount of $96,800.00 and 2 more new account numbers! This went on for about 6 months! I gave all the letters to my BK attorney to include in my case. Due to all the different account numbers, everything had to be included. When it was all added up, the total amount came to over 2.1 MILLION DOLLARS! Thats right folks! For what was in reality about $250,000.00, ARMC and S.B. Central Collections Created a bunch of new account numbers and double and tripple billed me for over 2.1 MILLION DOLLARS!

The irony is that unless the FBI does something about things like this, it will allow ARMC to write that much money off as a loss and soak the county and state taxpayers for more money to cover their “Costs” than what they really spent! And gee… I wonder where that money will really end up!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:45:44 +0000

@Former_employee: Uh, Muffer? Or Carl Alban, Director of Architecture & Engineering?

By: Former employee

Former employee — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:49:22 +0000

Not surprised about the Feds visiting ARMC and the little man. The BOS should seriously investigate the bidding process for ARMC’S construction. Guess who carried the blueprints in his car and bragged about choosing all the vendors.

By: Iknownothing!

Iknownothing! — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 01:14:26 +0000

US Citizen:

I’m sorry for your suffering at the hands of ARMC. Unfortunately you’ve been given a glimpse into the future. The future of Obamacare, e.g., US nationalized health care.

If you are not a pregnant illegal alien, ready to pop out yet another anchor baby, they care nothing about you.

True!

By: US Citizen

US Citizen — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:51:47 +0000

I was in an accident and severly broke both bones in my lower leg. The Hesperia fire dept took me to ARMC. When I got there I told them I was unemployed and had no insurance. They also knew that I did not live within SB County! After the ER checked me out, they addmitted me in ARMC where I layed in a room for 2 full days with my leg severly broken before they operated on me. During that time, they could have transfered me to a hospital within the county I lived in! It took 18 screws and 2 plates to repair my broken bones. (I have pictures of the before & after) When I asked for the detailed billing I found the price for the 2 plates which were $1,800.00 and $3,100.00 and there was another plate of some kind on my bill that had a price of over $9,000.00! I also noticed that I was being billed for a total of 25 screws which was 7 more than what were in my leg! If you don’t think thats a big deal, then consider that the cost of each screw is $903.00! Thats $6,321.00 for screws they DID NOT put in my leg! There was lots of other items in my bill that were not in my leg!

A couple of months later, after all my incesions were completely healed, a small hole opened up where one of the incisions was and starting oozing a orangish fluid so I went back to ARMC and was told I had an infection and was admitted on the spot! 2 days later, what they refered to as a clean out surgery, they actually cut a skinny foot ball shaped chunk of flesh out of my leg that was 10 inches long and 2-1/2 inches wide and went all the way down to the bone & plate! With such a huge chunk of flesh having to be removed, that tells me that the infection went into my leg when they operated on me the first time! I was in the hospital for 28 days before I was discharged with Home Health Care visits to finish the treatment of my leg. The sad part is that while I was in the hospital, the doctors told me that after my bones healed, they had to open me up AGAIN to remove the hardware because once an infection gets into the hardware, even the strongest antibiotics can not kill it! Long story short, they kept stalling the surgery to remove the hardware for so long, that my leg was showing major signs of being infected again! So Instead of a quick same day surgery, I was admitted again and put on another 6 week regiment of I.V. Antibiotics!

In the end, I accumulated over $250.000.00 in hospital bills and because I don’t live in SB county, I don’t qualify for any assistance programs and the JERKS at ARMC collections have totally destroyed my credit report! Therefore I have been left no other choice but to file for Chapter 7 backrupcy!

By: Jesse James

Jesse James — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:33:30 +0000

My wife had emergency @ ARMC histerectomy there,and had to have surgery
in redlands community two years later.Blood sample found metal in her blood found from a metal patch that had deteriorated in her stomach!
could not do anything about it

By: tic, tic, tic

tic, tic, tic — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:27:46 +0000

tic, tic, tic… medical director back from wherever… tic, tic, tic… he’s seen and heard rooting around making promises to riverside docs, the folks in sacramento are busy as beavers… tic, tic, tic…

By: Patient Advocate2

Patient Advocate2 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:23:08 +0000

I hope that the BOS and the other people who read this blog understand that the complaints being brought forward are about patient safety and about providing the kind of care that we would want ourselves, our families and loved ones to receive if they were patients at ARMC. The concerns being brought forward are valid and should be investigated…or do more patients have to be injured or even die before something is done about it?

By: Redlands doc

Redlands doc — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:45:43 +0000

What’s been swept under the rug at ARMC by medical director and his circle of fear is what the BOS are concerned about. Colonies is nothing but a game. ARMC is failure at the top for keeping patient care a priority.

By: tic, tic, tic

tic, tic, tic — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:46:14 +0000

tic, tic, tic… soon it will be time to face the music little man… tic, tic, tic… the show has just begun… tic, tic, tic…

By: Cheesecake

Cheesecake — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:42:12 +0000

Rumor has it Uffer was Dev’s puppet.

Somehow Dev had Uffer believing he was responsible for his CAO appointment.

Which leads to the question, how smart is Uffer?

LOL

By: wheres uffer

wheres uffer — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:45:23 +0000

Mr Uffer what say you? Were you Dev’s puppet?

By: su colvin

su colvin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:55:42 +0000

the “county” hospital has been double billing for years….sometimes billing “again” up to five years after the event…..

By: Redlands doc

Redlands doc — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:38:23 +0000

This article series is right on point; however, it only brushes the tip of the iceberg of the fraud and abuse at ARMC. Like Gnanadev cancelling the hospitals contracts with insurance companies so his surgery group and the hospital could make more money from trauma patients. He would bill the trauma patient for more money after the insurance company paid the hospital. The motto of the hospital is bankrupting patients at every turn.

Dr. Gnanadev claims to be the godfather of ARMC, protecting his corrupt compadres from justice and giving free healthcare to county administrators.

YES INDEED.

By: Steve Brow

Steve Brow — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:16:03 +0000

Reminds me of the old days when Orange County had a public hospital. It was a scary place. You only went there if you had no money and there was no place else to go.

Forunately, UC Irvine started a medical school, bought the hospital, and turned the scary Orange County Hospital into the world-class UCI Medical Center.

By: Patient Advocate

Patient Advocate — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:05:29 +0000

Dr. Gnanadev claims to be the godfather of ARMC, protecting his corrupt compadres from justice and giving free healthcare to county administrators.

By: Unwilling...

Unwilling... — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:44:29 +0000

Sounds like Dr. Gev was in cahoots with Jim Lindley and Mark Uffer to establish this little circle of deceit. First purchasing and now Public Health, hmmmm.

County hospitals are there to service the indigent, not compete with for profit and non profit private hospitals. ARMC has always been the wrong business model. Now maybe someone will see that.

By: tic, tic, tic

tic, tic, tic — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:38:35 +0000

…tic, tic, tic… Dr. Guillermo Valenzuela doing dirty work… tic, tic, tic… what they saying in sacramento dr dev? … tic, tic, tic…