Becker's Hospital Review

149 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Mission Health moves chemotherapy out of rural areas By Molly Gamble M ission Health relocated some cancer services out of rural areas to Asheville, N.C., Sept. 3, accord- ing to the Citizen Times. Mission's chemotherapy locations in four North Carolina towns — Franklin, Brevard, Marion and Spruce Pine — were centralized and moved to Asheville, where the system is headquartered. It moved non-chemotherapy infusion ser- vices onto hospital campuses at Blue Ridge Regional Hospi- tal in Spruce Pine, Angel Medical Center in Franklin, Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion and Transylvania Regional Hos- pital in Brevard. Rural community members who accessed Mission's can- cer care are left with an independent oncology group, Messino Cancer Centers, as their local option for services that Mission is moving away. The group was founded by physicians who split from Mission in January, and it offers the majority of the treatments Mission had provided. Bob Scott, the mayor of Franklin, criticized the change as part of Mission's gradual reduction of rural healthcare. "I really would rather see some of these bailout funds and profits and all coming back into our hospital in our town, because that's where people get sick," he told the Citizen Times. "It appears that it's a little bit of a chipping away of all the services that we've always enjoyed out here with Angel Community Hospital and then it became Angel Medical Center and now … it's becoming sort of a triage area to send folks on over to Asheville." Asheville is approximately 60 miles away from Franklin. HCA Healthcare, a for-profit hospital operator based in Nash- ville, Tenn., acquired Mission in February 2019. HCA has re- ceived $1 billion in grants made available under the Coronavi- rus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, according to Reuters. A Mission spokesperson told the Citizen Times that many pa- tients have chosen to stay with Messino Cancer Centers for care after those physicians left the Mission system in January 2020, and those "additional care options have created less of a need for similar services at some of [Mission's] facilities." n Physician assistant median annual base salary, by state By Kelly Gooch P hysician assistants in Alaska earned the highest median annual base salary in 2019, while PAs in Alabama earned the lowest, according to a salary report released Aug. 3 by the American Academy of PAs. Data in the report was based on a survey of 13,682 physician assistants between Feb. 1 and March 1. e PA median annual base salary in each state and the District of Columbia are listed below, in descending order. e list includes ties at Nos. 3, 5, 10, 14, 16, 19, 27, 33, 39, 42, 45 and 47. 1. Alaska: $133,976 2. California: $130,000 3. Nevada: $125,000 3. Wyoming: $125,000 5. Connecticut: $120,000 5. Washington: $120,000 7. Hawaii: $117,500 8. District of Columbia: $117,253 9. Minnesota: $117,000 10. New Jersey: $115,000 10. New Mexico: $115,000 10. Oregon: $115,000 13. North Dakota: $112,500 14. Maine: $112,000 14. Texas: $112,000 16. Arizona: $111,000 16. New York: $111,000 18. Maryland: $110,776 19. Massachusetts: $110,000 19. Oklahoma: $110,000 19. New Hampshire: $110,000 19. Vermont: $110,000 19. Colorado: $110,000 19. Wisconsin: $110,000 25. Montana: $109,500 26. Iowa: $109,000 27. Illinois: $107,000 27. Rhode Island: $107,000 27. Indiana: $107,000 30. South Dakota: $106,412 31. Idaho: $106,114 32. Michigan: $105,800 33. Florida: $105,000 33. Utah: $105,000 33. Georgia: $105,000 36. Ohio: $103,609 37. Virginia: $103,410 38. North Carolina: $103,290 39. West Virginia: $103,000 39. Nebraska: $103,000 41. South Carolina: $102,776 42. Kansas: $102,000 42. Pennsylvania: $102,000 44. Kentucky: $101,000 45. Delaware: $100,500 45. Mississippi: $100,500 47. Missouri: $100,000 47. Arkansas: $100,000 47. Tennessee: $100,000 47. Louisiana: $100,000 51. Alabama: $90,500 n

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