From the editor: How we reported the four-part investigation of Community Medical Centers

Dear readers,

Over the last decade, Community Medical Centers has pumped approximately $1 billion into expanding its suburban Clovis hospital campus.

But has that investment come at yet another cost to Fresno – and, in particular, the often impoverished patients who rely on its downtown Fresno hospital?

That question is at the heart of “Care & Conflict” — a nearly two-year investigation that we proudly present today at fresnobee.com and in print on Sunday.

These stories shine a bright light on the central San Joaquin Valley’s largest health care provider.

Bee reporter Yesenia Amaro has spent the better part of two years digging into CMC’s decisions over the last decade and beyond.

This resulting investigation is based on careful research and reporting. She filed records requests with various agencies, talked with dozens of sources inside and outside CMC and pored over thousands of pages of documents and digital records.

What was found is substantial:

• CMC steered millions of dollars in state and federal funding meant to offset the cost of caring for poor and underinsured patients at downtown Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center and spent it on an expansion of Clovis Community Medical Center.

• The shift of money from Fresno to Clovis has left the downtown medical center without a plan to meet the state’s 2030 deadline to retrofit its aging main patient towers so they are able to withstand a powerful earthquake.

• That greatly expanded Clovis hospital campus is rising on the same stretch of ground near Herndon Avenue where CMC Board Chairman Farid Assemi has launched his own ambitious project: California Health Sciences University. The for-profit school raises serious questions about potential conflicts of interest for Assemi and former and current board members.

Amaro joined The Bee in 2018 to cover immigration and related issues. You have probably seen her name on stories about the transfer of immigrants to ICE in Fresno County and her work detailing how county social services allowed foster children to sleep on office tables in its downtown building. But she also has covered CMC since a 2020 disagreement between physicians and administrators threatened the downtown hospital’s Level I trauma center status. While that crisis was resolved, Yesenia soon discovered there was a much larger and deeper story to tell. The investigation grew as she continued to dig.

Public records laws allowed The Bee to obtain information from state and federal government sources that shed important insight into the programs that provide CMC with a significant chunk of its funding. These records form the foundation of this investigation.

CMC is a private nonprofit. While it takes in millions of dollars of public money every year for its operations, it doesn’t have to abide by those open records laws. Yesenia repeatedly asked CMC to turn over documents and board meeting minutes that would provide a paper trail to back up the answers we were given. CMC refused, saying this information is proprietary.

Yesenia has given CMC and its board members every opportunity to respond to issues raised by her reporting. She conducted interviews with CMC’s management and followed up with written questions. She also interviewed Assemi during a two-hour session on Zoom. Out of an abundance of fairness, she sent CMC a letter on Aug. 3 that detailed the findings of The Bee’s reporting.

CMC — which recently changed its name to Community Health System but still is widely recognized by its former name — is the largest nonprofit in the region and employs more than 9,000 people. Yesenia’s work gives you, our readers and subscribers, a closer look at the decisions CMC’s board made and how they reverberate across Fresno and the greater region. If the downtown hospital is diminished, it will most profoundly impact those who are less fortunate.

Throughout its 100-year history, The Fresno Bee has stood for revealing investigative reporting that shines light into darkness and holds the powerful to account. Nothing speaks more to this passion for public service journalism than this investigation.