- Posted at the Healthcare Renewal Blog on June 3, 2013 -
Sound Shore Medical Center (New Rochelle, NY) is filing for bankruptcy protection:
Montefiore Medical Center is offering to buy Sound Shore Health System for $54 million plus furniture and equipment, according to the latter’s bankruptcy filing — which also reveals just how far the troubled Westchester health network had fallen into the red.
Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, Mount Vernon Hospital and five related entities have about $200 million in debts owed to more than 3,000 creditors, while possessing only $159.6 million in assets, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents show. Sound Shore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday as the first step in discharging its debts and selling itself to the Montefiore system.
Why were they in the red?
You can read the full article "Westchester hospitals' sale price over $54 million; Hospitals' debt about $200M" in The Journal News for yourself at this link: http://www.lohud.com/article/20130530/NEWS/305300081/Westchester-hospitals-sale-price-over-54-million?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|News&gcheck=1, but there's this interesting passage:
... Beginning in 2006, the hospitals saw falling patient volume and a change in their case mix. That led to “significant” losses in recent years, negative cash book balances and bills paid more than 225 days late. A 2011 electronic medical record and billing system conversion caused major delays in billing and cash collection that still haven’t been fully solved.
(This passage has a familiar ring to it; e.g., see SEC Count 9 at "Florida Hospital gets an 'F' on Informatics" at http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/cases/?loc=cases&sloc=miami.)
A 2011 EHR and billing conversion? It's now 2013.
How many hospital IT personnel does it take to
-- SS
4 comments:
Buyer beware. Smoke and mirrors boost the sales of these devices.
I would venture to say that the CEO and CIO get golden parachutes for running the hospital in to the ground.
This is going to happen at a rapid pace....there needs to be a separate blog to document this trend of bankruptcy, fire sales, and the discovery of who received the golden parachutes.
This is hat happens when you buy that baby elephant. They are so cute and full of the promise of bringing in new patients. Then the reality of feeding and caring for a growing elephant takes over. Eventually all of the hospitals resources are geared towards the elephant and patients and staff are left with only one thing to do:
Feed the elephant.
Steve Lucas
Methinks its a contrived bankruptcy to allow profits to be passed on to the next owner when they write down the good will and in doing so cause medicare billing rates to increase to cover the 'loss' - biggest trick of the C suite in academic health care that you'll never hear about.
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