Vermont hospital chief flameout 2.0

The ousted chief of Vermont's largest hospital is now two strikes away from a final out trying to run health-care companies.

The question is what's Sunil Eappen MD's problem?

And will he try for a third swing? Or just retire?

Dr. Eappen by all accounts was a highly successful anesthesiologist in the Boston hospital system before he tried his hand at actually running a hospital.

Yet he's effectively failed not just once but twice now in that endeavor.

Eappen was briefly acting president of Brigham & Women's, a massive hopital operation in Boston, before he lost the permanent position to somebody else.

His next stop was the University of Vermont, which hired him - on the run? - in 2022 to run the state's largest health network.

But now just a short three years later, he's out.

Eappen and his bosses put out a canned statement saying they had "mutually decided" that he was going, going gone.

Whether he was actually fired is a distinction without a difference.

Eappen never really got it.

And the state panel that oversees hospital budgets has been extremely unhappy with his job performance.

Eappen's ouster comes just weeks after the chairman of the Green Mountain Care Board excoriated the hospital for alleged grossly inept management.

There's one other thing about Eappen's history that can't be ignored.

Just eight months ago during a meeting of a legislative committee Eappen either lied about or "misstated" his salary.

Early in February, state Rep. Daisy Berbeco, D-Winooski, grilled the embattled hospital chief about how much he makes.

After Berbeco asked the question, Eappen repeated it, saying "is that what you want to know?"

Yeah doctor, you heard the question. That's exactly what she wanted to know.

Eappen dragged out the answer for as long as he could, finally giving an answer - and a false one at that - to how much his most recent raise was.

He told the lawmaker that his last bonus was $400,000.

The only problem with that answer was it wasn't true.

To make matters worse, hospital officials later had to do clean up in Aisle 11.

They put out a statement claiming that Eappen had "misstated" his bonus - that it was actually nearly $600,000.

In an email to the Health Care Committee a week after the legislative hearing, UVM Health Network "clarified" the information that Eappen had given the committee.

His bonus was $596,073, added to his salary of $1,354,712 to bring his total compensation last year to $1,950,785.

Eappen "misspoke in committee and gave the net amount after-taxes of roughly $400,000 rather than the gross amount closer to $600,000," the email stated.

Sure, doctor, like any of us believes you didn't realize you fudged the truth, shall we say, by pretending you thought she meant after taxes.

Sunil Eappen has two strikes against him running hospitals. He's two for two - but on the negative side.

Now the question is will he try a third time somewhere else?