ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) –
Another lawsuit has been filed against HCA Healthcare, this one accusing the company of not paying Mission Hospital employees for all of their time worked.
“Instead, Defendant paid them based on post-edited, rounded, modified, and inaccurate and/or incomplete records which do not include all compensable work required by, performed for, and to the benefit of the Defendant,” the federal lawsuit said.
“Defendant willfully manipulated both the beginning and end of shirt time records of Plaintiff and the members of the FLSA Collective and State Law Class to reflect less time worked when Defendant submitted these employees’ records to payroll, resulting in less time paid than time work,” the 22-page document continued.
The class and collective action complaint against Mission Hospital’s parent company was filed Thursday, April 25, in the Western District of North Carolina.
A spokesperson for HCA Healthcare said the company is not commenting on the litigation.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein filed suit against HCA Healthcare in December 2023, claiming it had failed to comply with the Asset Purchase Agreement it executed when it purchased Mission Health System in 2019.
“For-profit HCA has broken its promise to the people of western North Carolina and to my office. Quality health care is too important – in some cases, a matter of life and death. But HCA apparently cares more about its profits than its patients,” Stein said in a news release his office issued at the time.
The North Carolina Department of Justice has heard from hundreds of North Carolinians about the issues at HCA and received more than 500 complaints, Stein said when announcing the lawsuit.
Stein is asking the court to order HCA to restore emergency and trauma services and oncology services to the level Mission Hospital provided before HCA took over.
The city of Brevard has also filed a lawsuit against HCA. Buncombe and Madison counties and the city of Asheville joined the lawsuit shortly after it was filed in 2022.
That suit accuses HCA of engaging in a scheme to monopolize healthcare markets in seven Western North Carolina counties.