Editor’s Note: Since Eureka Springs Hospital became a Rural Emergency Hospital almost two years ago, it has received federal money to be primarily an emergency hospital with no inpatient care.
Some staff, whether due to the REH designation, management choices, commission decisions, financial or other difficulties, became exasperated and contacted us months ago to listen to their stories. Following are a few, and there are more.
We welcome a response from the commission, the board and the mayor. Of those contacted, we have heard only “No comment.” We also appreciate readers’ opinions.
Samantha Webb started as a medical records clerk at the Eureka Springs Hospital in February 2023. It was a job she loved. She showed up on time, did her job and had no disciplinary actions in her file.
She was fired Sept. 14, 2023—she says because she was trying to do her job providing medical records to patients or their authorized representatives.
About Sept. 9, she had a call from a woman whose husband had been at ESH in July, and requested her late husband’s medical records. “She had earlier gotten records but said she still needed the doctor’s notes,” Webb said. “She said she had called many times and, if need be, she would call the administrator. I got her records together, printed them out and put them in a folder, and let the admission’s clerk know when to expect the woman requesting the records.”
Then Chief Financial Officer Cynthia Asbury intervened and ordered Webb to go back and retrieve the records.
“Cynthia said this could get us in trouble,” Webb said. “She asked if the woman had signed the consent form. I said the consent form hadn’t been signed because the woman wasn’t there yet. Cynthia said, ‘You can’t just give our medical records to anyone.’ She said giving the paperwork out would be a huge HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) violation. They didn’t want her to have the records even though she was entitled to the records. I think they were fearing she was getting ready to sue. Cynthia said they weren’t married but the woman told me they had been married 57 years. I felt like I was going to be sick to my stomach.”
Webb said about 30 minutes after returning to her office, Human Resources Director Jody Edmonson and Asbury came and told Webb from now on, she could only give out medical records during regular business hours, and she was to no longer leave them at the admission’s desk where records were previously left to be picked up.
Webb was suspended for three days. She consulted with her former supervisor who advised her to write out a plan of action, hold her head high, and don’t let them see her sweat. But Webb said it took them less than five minutes to fire her.
Webb applied for unemployment benefits. The hospital denied them. She appealed and won. The hospital appealed that ruling, but again the ruling came down in Webb’s favor.
Webb said what happened to her had a chilling effect on other employees. Despite having won the unemployment appeals, it is on Webb’s job record that she was fired, making it difficult for her to find another job in the medical records field.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Webb said. “I care so much about the hospital. It is a special place. It is for the community. To see it turned on its ear has been very sad. People don’t smile any more, they just go in and leave. It is unreal to me. Cynthia is now medical records director, but she’s not credentialed to do that. She is an accountant.”
Webb’s husband, Richard, also worked at the hospital.
“Everyone in that place except Cynthia and Jodi are frustrated and sick and tired of all of it,” Richard Webb, who worked in housekeeping and laundry, said. “Everyone is intimidated.”
Webb said after his wife was fired, staff was cut in his department and his amount of work tripled.
“Then they started coming up to me and saying I had to clean the personal bathrooms upstairs for the administrators, something I had never been asked to do, and they were telling me I had to do it in front of Cynthia,” Webb said. “That felt like retaliation for my wife winning the unemployment case. I was there for two years and got nothing but good marks. I was already doing the work that three people used to do. I was responsible for the whole hospital, the clinic and the doctor’s house. I came home and talked it over with my wife, and the next day, turned in my badge and keys on my second anniversary of working at the hospital.”