Former Mission chief of staff: ‘I truly felt like it was a moral injury’ to work for hospital
ASHEVILLE WATCHDOG | Reported by ANDREW R. JONES
October 27th, 2023
Dr. Michael Frisch worked at Mission Hospital for 15 years, including as chief of staff at the time of its sale to HCA Healthcare. // Watchdog photo by Starr Sariego (left); Credit: Dr. Michael Frisch (right)
The following article by Andrew R. Jones appeared in Asheville Watchdog on October 27th, 2023
Dr. Michael Frisch once held one of the most prominent positions at Asheville’s Mission Hospital, but today he gives the campus a wide berth.
“I do try to avoid driving past the hospital there just because I get upset and depressed when I see it,” Frisch told Asheville Watchdog in an exclusive interview days after the former Mission chief of staff and 49 other doctors signed a letter condemning what they said is owner HCA Healthcare’s “for-profit-driven” management, which, according to the document, “gutted the heart and soul of our community healthcare system.”
Frisch, 55, worked at Mission for 15 years and was the hospital chief of staff from 2019-2020, during the time when Nashville-based HCA bought it and the six-hospital system it belongs to for $1.5 billion.
Frisch said he was proud of the medical community that Mission, previously a non-profit hospital, had built over the years. But, he said, he watched many of his colleagues and friends leave for the same reasons he did: HCA’s for-profit model wasn’t how they wanted to practice medicine.
“It just, in my opinion, destroyed the medical community that was Mission,” Frisch said, adding that “I truly felt like it was a moral injury to be working for them.”
“I just felt dirty”
Frisch talked to The Watchdog for nearly an hour Wednesday, the first time he has publicly discussed the reasons behind his departure. In the wide-ranging interview, he described his early optimism about the hospital’s sale, his realization that care was declining, and his difficult decision to leave.
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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Andrew R. Jones is a Watchdog investigative reporter. Email arjones@avlwatchdog.org.
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