Borrego Clinic Crisis: Part Four
An archived copy, not our reporting
This page reproduces an article published by the Borrego Sun on 1 July 2020, written by an unsigned staff report. We did not write it and we do not own it. We keep it because the paper's own address for it, www.borregosun.com/story/2020/07/01/borrego-clinic/borrego-clinic-crisis-part-four/5681.html, returned a Not Found when we last checked on 7 October 2026, and because the reporting matters to the subject of this site. This copy came from the Internet Archive snapshot. The text is as it was printed. Anything stated in it is the writer's own, and allegations in it were allegations when published. We removed personal contact details where they appeared, and marked the gap.
Another executive seems to has left Borrego Health – John Heydt, Chief Academic Officer. His salary was $680,000 plus benefits, and a family member, Stephanie Heydt, being paid $54,000. It seems strange that from July 2019, he was CEO of Apex Medical Group and is the Chief Clinical Officer of KPC Health.
A long-term employee, Rita Anderson, Director of Purchasing, was also terminated after being with BH for 14 ½ years. No reason was given. There seemed to have been quite a cull of employees in April, mainly ones that resided in Borrego.
Daryl Priest, a good friend of Bruce Hebets, seems to be very involved with Borrego Health. His company, Priest Construction, seems to have done a lot of the construction and remodeling of the clinics. At one time, it was discussed that he was going to be the builder for the new offices/pharmacy in Borrego Springs, but the project did not materialize. As well as his construction business, he also happens to own a company called Premier Healthcare Management, which is run by one of his family members, Nick Priest. This company is involved with the administration of the dental side of Borrego Health. Daryl Priest seems to have a number of different involvements with Borrego Health, as does Dan Anderson of Riverside Community Health Foundation.
In September of last year, a two-day gala was held by Borrego Health in Coronado at the Island Marriott Resort and Spa. At the gala, Mikia Wallis was recognized as the new CEO. There were lunches, dinners, drinks, and hotel rooms with the cost coming in over $250,000, the Sun was told.
It seems that Dr. James Huot is back at the Borrego Clinic, but we are still hearing perturbing stories of goings on there. There still seems to be a great problem with the pharmacy, for which the Sun has received numerous complaints. More about this in the next issue.
We hear that travel expenses for the last year have increased to $1,300,000, how can this be?
So many questions to be answered.
The Sun has tried to contact Diana Thompson to ask for various documents and financial statements per their 990 at the phone number stated, but our calls were not answered.
Copy ends. Published by the Borrego Sun, 1 July 2020. Back to the archive index, which lists every story in this run and explains how the paper's back catalog came to be missing.