Chapter
29

While working with the awesome people in St. Martin Parish was phenomenal, working with the staffing company that was giving me my monthly check was not. That company had bought my previous employer, and that company had been purchased by another company and that company had gone bankrupt. The health care providers chosen to work in ERs for the company seemed to be coming down to one primary criteria. The quality of those providers didn’t seem to matter. They seemed to just want the cheapest doctor available to staff their ERs. My job title at the time was regional medical director covering the state of Louisiana for the company, and I was supposed to be a liaison between hospital administrators and the company’s physicians. If a hospital administrator had an issue with the quality of a physician, they could call me, as another physician, to discuss it. Since the bankruptcy, I was getting more and more calls about how bad my physician co-workers were across the state. Most of these complaints were completely valid. I didn’t like trying to make excuses for my physician co-workers. In fact, I often found their behavior inexcusable on any level.

 

The week after the accident, my boss had several nice and expensive dolls sent directly to our house for Alex in an effort to show compassion to our hurting family. That was genuinely nice and loving in his own way. Several weeks after returning to work after the accident, I was invited up to the company’s headquarters in Dallas. I think my boss was attempting to make me feel special and appreciated. I decided that this would be the time that I spoke directly to him about how we could not go on having such poor-quality physicians working with us. I would clearly explain to him the dangers of these physicians and how we could make things better. I was prepared with clear data and examples. I walked into the Dallas office and was greeted by some kind and sweet people. The kindest one there was Tammy. She brought me around the office and introduced me to the entire staff. Finally, I was brought to my boss’ office for our meeting. This man had grown a successful company, and I was sure that I could convince him how desperate and important it was that we make big quality changes at the company. His corner office was impressive. It was located in a high-rise office building and showed the Dallas skyline in the distance. He began to talk about contemporary topics of the day which filled most of our meeting time. I then jumped in and began sharing with him the serious issues that I had with my fellow physicians. As I began to talk, his eyes began to glaze over. He began to obviously tune me out and began staring out into the Dallas skyline. After discussing several examples threatening patient safety, I paused to see if he was even listening to me anymore.

 

He then locked eyes back with me and said, “So what are you doing this Christmas?”

 

I said, “What????”

 

He repeated, “What are you doing for Christmas?”

 

I stuttered a bit wondering if he had heard a single word of what I had been talking about. I hadn’t really thought about that question coming up especially since it was only around the end of August or beginning of September. I then answered, “Well…… I guess this Christmas is going to be a bit different.”

 

He said, “Really? How?”

 

I said, “Well, with Jackson not being here…”

 

He immediately cut me off there and wanted no discussion of that sort of thing. I remember him raising up his hand in a dismissive shaking hand in my face kind of way to stop me from that kind of talk.

 

He then leaned towards me from across his desk as he again looked out across the Dallas skyline. He then began with, “You know what I’m doing this Christmas? Well for the past few years I head down to Mexico for Christmas. There’s a woman in Mexico that gives me this incredible massage……..”

 

As he continued to share lurid details of his planned Christmas encounter coming up, I realized this man and I were not of the same planet. I had come up to Dallas to discuss important health care issues that affected the lives of untold numbers of patients in emergency departments. His response was to dismiss my discussion of a grieving Christmas and to discuss the details of a story he obviously wanted to share. When he was done talking, our meeting was done too. There would be no change in the physician staffing. There would be no change in the quality of physicians. There would also be an environment there where he believed that a delivery of some expensive dolls to my family and several weeks of grieving was all I would get. Now get back to work.

 

While I would get back to work, I could no longer work with this man. I was stunned. I would have to fly home and tell my wife that I had to quit this company. More chaos in our already chaotic life would be coming. I didn’t want that conversation. I wept on that plane. I missed my son. I missed my family.

 

When I arrived home from Dallas, I remember stopping to look at the mail. In that mail, there was a check from MetLife. Elna’s dad had changed careers years before from being a civil engineer to selling insurance policies for MetLife. In an effort to support him in his new career, Elna purchased life insurance policies covering Jackson and Alex. The idea was that the policies would be college fund accounts that we could cash in later for the kids’ educations. Never did we think that we would need life insurance income connected to our children. So, as I looked at the mail that day, I began to sob deeply again. The money was blood money. There was no amount of money that could ever be enough to help us in our grief of Jackson. I was tempted to shred the check and never look back. It was looking like a terrible, horrible day. I missed my son. I was going to quit my job. I was staring at blood money in my hand.

 

Then it came together. How about I take this money and start a father and son company? The funds from MetLife would supply the seed money. I would do the daily grind. Alex’s ER experience was fresh on my mind. I wanted to work with a company where every physician was of the same quality that I would want my own family member to go to. The month before the accident, I had filed the paperwork for a startup company that I was planning to use to teach hospital employees how to recognize fraud and abuse in the health care industry. The company was called Correct Care, Inc. It became obvious that Correct Care’s focus would not be on hospital compliance in identifying fraud and abuse. Correct Care, Inc. would be a physician staffing company committed to providing the absolute best in health care. As the tagline reads: “Correct Care is not just a company. It’s a medical mission.”

 

Matthew 28 NIV

 

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”