Grandview Medical Center — Local services in Birmingham

Dr Casterline, we believe was the best in his field, performed my husbands open heart surgery at Grandview Medical on 12/12/24 but due to many unexpected complications his anticipated 3-4 hr surgery turned into over 8 hours. After 8 days in Cardiac ICU we got to go home but in less than 20 hours of being back at our home in Piedmont, AL, he was life flighted from Riverview in Gadsden back to Birmingham Grandview Medical with many life threatening acute medical issues from his open heart surgery complications that put him through a very close call with death. We were placed back into Grandview’s CICU on 12/20/24 not knowing this inpatient hospitalization stay at Grandview would keep us there through the Christmas & New Year holidays. My husbands heart surgery & all his additional complications that had unexpectedly occurred left my husband who was always a vitality strong & healthy, active man, he became too weak to barely feed himself. The knowledge & kindness of the nursing staff from ICU to our stay finally on the 7th floor was made to be as comfortable as possible. His needs were meet and the medical staff were more than kind. He is home and healing well now although he is mending slowly which we hear is expected with all the complications he faced through his aortic & mitral valve replacements & aortic aneurysm sleeve placement. He is still facing the possibility of a pacemaker down the road if they can’t keep his heart in sinus rhythm another way. The cleanliness of the Grandview hospital was impressive to me and I was especially impressed with his CICU care team. Lack of sleep was & still continues to be a real problem for him since his open heart surgery. The interruption of sleep & rest once he was placed on the 7th floor was somewhat ridiculous to me. I realize the staff has a job to do. But, I actually timed it on 2 different days when the staff was checking his vitals, drawing blood, bringing & picking up his food trays, several different staff were coming in to empty the trash, then another would come in to collect dirty linens, then another to sweep or mop, (although I had to bathe him and request his bed linens to be changed which was done only twice in the 3 weeks we were there which I thought was very strange) different meds being given to him every 30 min to an hour or two, every single time he would finally fall asleep, night or day, he would be awoken by staff for little things each time they woke him. He was begging to go home just so he and I could actually get some rest. But, the actual caregiving was exceptional. I just felt like the patient interruptions could have been a lot better organized so the patients could actually sleep and heal. But, all in all, a great medical facility. I had one vehicle parked in the parking deck for about 3 weeks and I think it’s sad that a heart patients wife who done all his bathing & caregiving by staying there with him, saving the staff a lot of work I believe, had to pay close to $350 in parking fees just to have the patients family car there at the hospital parked for 3 weeks. I tried to call 4x leaving messages each time to patient’s adjudicators dept. To see if there was a way to get some sort of discount on the patient’s parking fees. We had lots of visitors from out of town and just from the ones we calculated our family and friends spent close to $1,000.00 on parking alone in the 3 weeks we were there. We pastor a church & have large families & friends who visited daily so we did have many visitors. That just seems excessive to me but no one ever returned my inquiries or phone calls. But, Dr Casterline & the medical staff of Grandview in Birmingham were used by God and they saved my husbands life more than once & for that we are forever...

We go to Grandview in 2023 to have a human baby. During labor they come in wanting our information wife gives her entire cell phone with all information off emails from insurance company we didn't have a physical copy after paying $580 per month for herself. They seen all the information and that we have insurance we pay the $350 copay..... 15-16 months later we start getting billed $65,000 for labor, $2700 for the 4 hours at the nursery after they almost let our daughter choke to death from not paying attention I guess who knows and $1700 for a hearing test lol lol lol..... I call Grandview billing they say we didn't have insurance but acknowledge on a recorded line that we paid our copay and that they couldn't get in touch with our insurance. After 50-60+ hours on the phone calling all over the country i finally track down the insurance company which has sold out and bought it back under a different name. They tell me they can't find us in the system we are not a customer to call this other number which goes to a voicemail and that was all Grandview did and left it alone. I keep on and on till I get a number in Puerto Rico of the company that is now a different name, they say we are not a patient and hang up repeatedly. I just keep calling back over and over and over from different numbers they cuss me out and said "yes I see where you was a customer the insurance filed your FN name wrong and didn't file the dependent that isn't our fault we don't correct people to have to pay for something." Then proceeds to give me a po box number for billing in Michigan or Minnesota, i give all this information to Grandview did they hard work for them. The head people over the billing on a recorded line said the billing will be halted and we will take care of this, I said like Grandview will cover this? She told me yes they have ways of dropping stuff like this like write offs. Im tickled all that hard work paid off then BAMMMM 10 months later we get letters from collections saying they are about to garnish wages and lists our workplace in the letter.... I call Grandview today 11/4/2025 explain it all over again the girl understands and gets on and off the phone with me to talk to supervisors saying they are coming up with a solution. Then she says " we are about to join another person on this recorded line oops I mean transfer you to a specialist on this." These raggedy mfrs have the collection service on the phone and start talking like they been on the phone the entire time. Grandview can go to hell, the entire billing department is trash!!!! This is how hard working Americans are treated when people come in on medicaid and Medicare have babies and walk right out the doors... $580 per month the Grandview hits us for $17,000 with insurance and going to hit our credit and wages, I wont pay a penny till the day I...

My 86-year-old father was taken to Grandview’s ER after his primary doctor called with critical lab results showing dangerously low hemoglobin and kidney failure. We arrived around 6:30 p.m. on October 22. Despite the urgency, no physician saw him for over 24 hours—not an exaggeration.

He was initially evaluated by a nurse practitioner, but no doctor was assigned to his case for over 24 hours, only after I personally intervened to make it happen.

His blood transfusion was delayed six hours despite being “critically low.” When he was transferred to a hospital room, no nurse came for more than an hour. I finally had to go to the nurses’ station myself to ask for help.

Later, the attending physician admitted that the ER had mishandled his case and that he had been prescribed a medication unsafe for his kidney condition.

The final straw came the next night. He was told a stool sample was needed, but the overnight nurse never followed through after giving him strong medication to help him “go.” When he finally had to go, he called nurse twice and waited nearly 20 minutes for anyone to assist him to the bathroom.

Afterward, we sat in the room with the stool sample for over two hours without a single nurse entering the room—seriously.

That morning, I spoke with a case worker and communicated all that had happened and wanted to file a complaint. She agreed the situation was unacceptable and said someone from Patient Care would come talk with us—but no one ever came, even after four hours of waiting.

We eventually made the tough decision to just leave hospital without answers, without follow-up, and without a single leader reaching out afterward. Everything has been documented and recorded, yet the administration clearly does not care.

The charge nurse’s excuse was, “You don’t know how many patients we have.” My response is simple: I don’t care how many patients you have—acknowledge it, apologize, and care for the people in your care.

I understand no one is perfect and things happen but as it shouldn’t have continued to happen after initial mishandling. Caring for a patient, good leadership, character, and integrity should never be optional qualities in healthcare.

As a pastor, I often walk with families through medical crises. I’ve seen how vulnerable people feel in these moments. To watch a hospital add to that pain instead of easing it is beyond disappointing.

My dad told me he would rather go home and die than go through care like that again. He had been willing to fight and work toward treatment—but not anymore.

It breaks my heart to see him give up when continued treatment and medical care could prolong his life and it shows how deeply we were failed. This was neglect, not healing. No family should ever have to experience what we...