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Seven new doctors have been licensed by the state, but hospital credentialing — a separate process — is not complete. No new doctors have been credentialed at RiverBend or Cottage Grove, while Florence has added five newly credentialed physicians alongside five already in place.
No new emergency department physicians have been credentialed at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend as part of its transition to a new staffing company that is scheduled to be finalized this summer.
PeaceHealth is switching emergency department coverage from Eugene Emergency Physicians, which staffs 39 doctors and two physician assistants at RiverBend and Cottage Grove, to Georgia-based ApolloMD. PeaceHealth has historically employed emergency physicians in Florence, which ApolloMD will take as well.
ApolloMD’s contract starts June 1 at Cottage Grove and Florence, and July 1 at RiverBend.
PeaceHealth executives are working with ApolloMD to launch Lane Emergency Physicians, a new practice that will be owned by an Illinois physician, Dr. Johne Philip Chapman.
Clinicians with Eugene Emergency Physicians have pledged not to work with ApolloMD for at least 90 days, citing safety concerns for patients and themselves. Many of them plan to never return.
Bringing in new physicians to work at the hospital is a multistep process. After signing with a staffing company or employer, clinicians must be licensed in Oregon and then credentialed by the hospital — a separate review that verifies qualifications and authorizes them to treat patients at that facility.
Credentialing is handled by the hospital’s medical staff through a formal committee, not administrators. Clinicians must submit extensive records, including education, licensing history, test scores, work history and malpractice background, which the hospital verifies, often by contacting previous employers and reviewing national databases.
The Oregon Medical Board confirmed to Lookout Eugene-Springfield that it has issued new licenses to seven physicians for RiverBend and one for Florence. Additional applications are in process, including 22 physicians for RiverBend, three for Florence and three for Cottage Grove.
PeaceHealth confirmed that no new doctors have been credentialed at RiverBend or Cottage Grove. At Florence, five new doctors have been fully credentialed, in addition to five physicians who previously moved there.
PeaceHealth said 110 clinicians have applied for credentials — including 86 physicians and 24 advanced practice clinicians.
“PeaceHealth is focused on ensuring uninterrupted, high-quality care for the patients and communities we serve. There are currently more than 100 physicians and other advanced practice clinicians moving through the credentialing process,” PeaceHealth spokesperson Joe Waltasti said in an email. “This process is thorough and occurs in stages to ensure all clinical, quality, and safety standards are met. PeaceHealth is actively planning for and managing to ensure that our emergency departments at RiverBend, Cottage Grove Community, and Peace Harbor medical centers remain open, staffed, and safe throughout the transitions this summer.”
In February, Lookout Eugene-Springfield sat down with Jim McGovern, chief hospital executive for PeaceHealth’s Oregon network, and asked about how long credentialing takes.
“It depends. It’s a couple of months,” he said. “We have plenty of time.”
McGovern has since been placed on administrative leave after the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee received more than 300 pages of emails allegedly showing that he was trying to actively manage how patients were treated.
The paper trail shows Eugene Emergency Physicians raised concerns about that intervention — which they say violates his administrative license — with top leadership at PeaceHealth. Instead of responding to those concerns, doctors said, the hospital launched a procurement process for a new emergency physician contract.
Members of the Medical Executive Committee — a peer-nominated group of doctors who meet with executive leadership on behalf of the broader staff — say the process that led to selecting Atlanta-based ApolloMD in February was “irreconcilably compromised.”
Separately, a federal judge on Monday, April 28, will begin weighing whether PeaceHealth’s plan to replace Eugene Emergency Physicians with ApolloMD violates Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine law.
