BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO.

• Author: Miller, Harrison

Seven Gastonia doctors wage a legal fight to seek independence from, CaroMont Health. The health system isn't pleased.

Brian Wysong has spent the past 13 years practicing medicine in Gastonia, mostly as an employee of CaroMont Health, Gaston County's dominant hospital system. On Dec. 2, Wysong and six other doctors are opening an independent practice, Gaston Medical Partners, which they say will better serve patients and provide more freedom over operations.

But CaroMont, a not-for-profit that relies on primary doctors to make referrals, is hobbling their startup efforts by citing noncompete agreements that restrict Wysong and colleagues from practicing for a competitor within 20 miles.

"While these physicians are valued members of our medical staff, we have no desire to keep them [from] transitioning away from CaroMont Health," says Costa Andreou, the hospital's executive vice president. "However, we do believe they must honor the obligations set forth in their contracts."

Gaston Medical is modeled after Charlotte's Tryon Medical Partners, a group of more than 80 physicians that split in August 2018 from Atrium Health, the state's largest health care system. The Gaston Medical physicians plan to hire a Tryon affiliate to help manage their new practice.

When Wysong joined the South Point practice in 2006, it was a private business that hired Winston-Salem-based Novant Health to provide administrative services. David Locklear co-founded the Belmont practice in 1981 and still practices there today with 16 other physicians. (Nine are not leaving CaroMont's employ.)

"When I first started there, for years people were happy," Wysong says. "I would say in the past three to four years, it's just been frustration, nobody really talking to each other and never knowing if you're going to have a job tomorrow."

Legal changes, including a 1992 federal law prohibiting doctors from self-referrals, required practices to be either independent or to join a hospital system. The changes ended the South Point-Novant arrangement, prompting CaroMont to buy the business in 2007.

"[CaroMont] basically said, 'We'll let you practice the way you practice,'" Wysong says. "'... But we want to own you, and we want our names associated with you.'"

In recent years, South Point produced at least $120 million in annual revenue for CaroMont, officials say. The system employs about 250 clinic doctors across 57 locations, mostly in Gaston and Cleveland counties, and netted $603...