VALLEY MED LLC TO BE BROWNSVILLE'S 1ST COVID MILLIONAIRE

By Juan Montoya

When Valley Med was hired by city officials way back in late March to combat the COVID-19 virus, the firm was hired to provide professional services, which meant that city officials and the administration had the option of either making a request for proposals (RFPs or letting out bids) or simply hiring what they considered the best outfit.


One of their stellar reps was PA Eder Hernandez. He collared Mayor Trey Mendez and some commissioners, touted himself off as  indispensable and an expert, they put in a good word for him, and Hernandez became the only game in town, the man put in charge of the city's COVID-19 testing at the Sports Park Complex. Hernandez and Dr. Teresa Saavedra said it was the city who approached them and offered them the gig.

That was in March 25, and until two other firms were hired in the first weeks of August to handle the demand for tests, Valley Med owned the COVID-19 testing monopoly in town.

In May, Hernandez got the endorsement of Mayor Trey Mendez for Valley Med, when he said patients seeking tests with health insurance would be referred to the company's private clinic and those that didn't would be funneled to the city's Sports Park complex operated by Hernandez.

"The people who are looking for the test, if they have medical insurance, then the medical insurance will be taken through the office of Dr. [Eder] Hernandez,” Mendez said in Spanish. “If for any reason they don’t have insurance, then there are funds available through the City of Brownsville to cover that."

During that time, his meter was running and the invoices of the tests – whether the results were positive or negative – were processed by the city's finance department and duly paid out to Hernandez's Valley Medical Urgent Care LLC.

The first invoice was for a modest $2,027.10. But 89 invoices later, on July 24, that total has risen to an astronomical $814, 851.60.
(Click on graphic to enlarge.)


The other two late comers – The Port Occupational and Medical Clinic LLC and Reliable Urgent Care and Occupational Medicine – lag far behind in chips. The first has handed in $163,464 in testing bills, and the latter $63,286, but both are quickly gaining ground on Hernandez's outfit.

All told, the city has paid $1,041,601 for the COVID-19 testing to the three firms as of July 30, and Valley Med has gotten 78.2 percent of those payments.

We knew there was money in COVID-19, but they knew before anyone and hurried to curry the favor of the people that mattered, the handlers of the public purse, the elected officials. Mendez often came in to cyber space to cheerlead and commissioner Jessica Tetreau was always there for some words of motherly advice.

We have been keeping notes of Super Eder and to tell you the truth, the picture that emerges is of a highly ambitious paraprofessional who is not quite a medical doctor, actually a Physician's Assistant, but who bristles at the affront that he is not really a bona fide doctor.

Whatever.

The fact remains is that at the rate he is going, COVID-19 and his political benefactors are going to be very, very good to him and make Valley Med a millionaire in a matter of months. The company's ambition knows no bounds and have Hernandez offer their services hither and yonder, making presentations before city and school boards from McAllen to Port Isabel.

As Valley Med's representative he is adept at tooting his own horn, judging by his frequent Facebook postings. People would complain that – as implemented – the questionnaire that decided who got tested for free (paid by the city) or not, was preventing some people from taking the test.

Then, if all the right buttons had been pushed and his staff placed the applicant on a list that stretched for days after the questionnaire had been answered, the suspected infected person led his normal life interacting with family and other people in the community.

After the test was administered at the Brownsville Sports park, patients would complain that it could take as much as a week or more to learn the results.

When they did, Hernandez would respond that he and his staff were overwhelmed with work and were doing every humanly possible to keep up, but, if they they persisted in calling him for a test or for results, would grow exasperated to the point where he threatened to cal the police on them.

And after the threat, a sermon on righteousness and an incantation against the devil and anyone who would dare question a man of "our Lord God." (See graphic at right)

Meanwhile, as the patients waited for results, they lived in suspense.

Well, they need not worry now with three outfits handling the testing and giving poor Hernandez a much-needed break from his herculean test.

(Well, actually he deigned to be a guest on Erasmo Castro's Brownsville Talk podcast and liked it so much, he started one of his own featuring...himself, of course.)

He commented on the flooding of a Reynosa Clinic. To him it was not just that water was getting into the ward, but it got him wishing for the Second Coming, and I mean now God!

After all, He did promise.

Oh, and did we tell you of his running battle where he pushes his COVID-19 "cocktail" remedy vs. the Ivermectin-based regime that got the cyberworld abuzz and prompted Facebook to shut down an account (Craig Groves's) which repeated the claims it was seen as a cure for COVID-19?

Well, we'll leave that for another time. Maybe by then Valley Med will have made the $1 million from our COVID-19 misery. They say the first million is always the hardest one.