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Reindeer Run raises money for NHHS scholarship

Henderson County News

Local soccer team finishes 18-1-1

The Furman United Soccer Club 99G Purple HVL team finished its fall season playing in the South Carolina Youth Soccer Association’s Presidents Medal Soccer League.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

LIGHTNING TOP 10: No. 2 (2)

The Top 10: No. 2 The corporate owner of Park Ridge Health agreed to pay a $118.7 million in fines to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged a pattern of fraud, physician kickbacks, overtesting and overbilling at the Fletcher hospital and other Adventist Health System properties in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and Illinois. The whistleblowers were three Park Ridge — Michael Payne, a risk manager who had worked there for nine years; Melissa Church, executive director of physician services and an employee for 15 years; and Gloria Pryor, a compliance officer who had worked at Park Ridge for 19 years. The complaint, filed under the federal False Claims Act, said that Adventist had in the early 1990s “initiated an aggressive strategy” to soak the federal government through inflated Medicare, Medicaid and veterans insurance claims. The lawsuit, which also included whistleblower allegations by a corporate vice president who joined Adventist in 2012, said that Park Ridge and other Adventist units had instituted “referral-driven compensation” that paid “hefty annual salaries” for part-time or nonproductive work, “excessive bonuses” based on hospital revenue and sharing of excess revenue “from known overbilling by employed and contracted physicians.” The arrangements, the lawsuit said, violated the federal Stark Statute, which prohibits hospitals from submitting Medicaid or Medicare claims who have an improper financial relationship with the hospital, and federal anti-kickback and false claims laws. Park Ridge said “Adventist-owned hospitals, such as Park Ridge, allegedly paid doctors bonuses based on the number of tests and procedures they ordered,” U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose. “This type of financial incentive is not only prohibited by law, but can undermine patients’ medical care.” Park Ridge said that did not happen in Fletcher. “There were no negative impacts on the quality, safety or individual cost of patient care at AHS hospitals or clinics as a result of these issues,” Park Ridge CEO Jimm Bunch said in a memo to hospital employees. “And as stated in the Department of Justice press release on the issue, ‘the claims settled by this agreement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.’”   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Forbes features Lightning as 'future of local print journalism'

Forbes magazine features the Hendersonville Lightning in its current issue as a successful weekly newspaper startup in a crowded media landscape.   Read Story »

Mills River News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Housing ought to be on Mills River docket

Sometime in 2017, if things go as industrial recruiters hope, the town of Mills River will once again celebrate a plant opening that marks a major coup in new job creation.The Hendersonville Lightning reported last week that a partnership of Swiss and Canadian manufacturers may invest at least $217 million and hire 350 workers at a new automotive parts plant in Ferncliff Industrial Park over the next six years if the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and Mills River Town Council approve economic development incentives totaling $7.25 million over 14 years.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Don't miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning (72)

You won't want to miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

LIGHTNING TOP 10: No. 3

The Top 10: No. 3 Sometimes rental living is not so easy. At Alpine Woods Resort, it did not even come with running water and heat. A story that the Hendersonville Lightning first brought to light in March, the 80-unit trailer park off Old Sunset Hill Road revealed developing nation conditions at the park — a deeply rutted dirt road ran through a haphazard cluster of trailers that had no furnaces and no water. Drinking, drug use and violent crime were so bad that fire trucks responding to call had police escorts. The city of Hendersonville — which was holding an unpaid $40,000 water bill from the landlord — convened an emergency meeting of public health, social services and law enforcement agencies to address the crisis. The sheriff’s office reported that from May 2007 to April 2014, deputies had responded to 7,789 calls for service. Some 1,957 could fit the state’s nuisance abatement statute, including disturbance calls, domestic abuse, drugs, fights and loud music. In May, the city of Hendersonville and Henderson County jointly filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down the park as a nuisance. “I am scared at all hours of the day and night to be on my own property,” a neighbor said, according to the lawsuit. Owner Warren Newell gave up ownership in July and it sold again in September to a family that has made improvements.   Read Story »

Mills River News

Pardee buys 20 acres in Mills River for $1.75M

MILLS RIVER — Pardee Hospital has bought 20 acres on N.C. 280 in Mills River as part of what the hospital’s CEO described as a “measured, strategic approach to planning for the health care needs” in fast-growing northern Henderson County.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Clean Water fund to protect Reems Creek

The N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund granted $330,000 to help protect an emergency drinking water supply for the town of Weaverville in the headwaters of Reems Creek, a tributary to the French Broad River.   Read Story »

Saluda News

Saluda group to premiere George A. Jones film

SALUDA — The Saluda Historic Depot and the Historic Saluda Committee will host the premiere of a 40-minute film on the life of Saluda native, lingtime Baptist minister and historian Dr. George Alexander Jones on Sunday, Jan. 10, at 3 p.m. at the Saluda Historic Depot, 32 W. Main St. in Saluda.   Read Story »

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