4/28/2023 0 Comments Venture forthe director of nursingJust days before Noble suspended operations, he told management: “We don’t have the ability to do the things we need to take care of patients.” Supplies for surgery disappeared, crucial medicines went unstocked, paychecks never came, he said. Inspection reports from the state workers coordinating with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services were alarming, listing 135 pages of deficiencies that put patients “ at risk for their health and safety.”Ĭorrado saw his hospital being whittled away. Once Noble owned Callaway and Audrain, the hospitals stopped paying their bills, according to lawsuits filed by contract nurses, security guards, and others. Things grew worse rather than better under the new private equity owners, according to Corrado as well as state and federal documents, gained through months of public records requests, and dozens of interviews with community leaders, health officials, and residents. “I never in a million years thought this day would come, that the actual doors would lock,” he says. Joe Corrado has worked as a general surgeon at Audrain Community Hospital for 40 years. Joe Corrado, a longtime surgeon at the hospital: On an average day in 2019, 40% of beds were empty, as more treatments moved to the outpatient setting and some patients drove an hour to larger hospitals for specialty care. In an emailed response to questions from KHN, Peterson said the startup was meant to do good: “We created Noble to save a rural hospital that was about to close.” Tasset could not be reached for comment.Īudrain had struggled before Noble came calling, said Dr. Just months later, he became one of two directors of Noble, along with Nueterra’s chairman, Daniel R. Peterson, whose previous foray into the space, an infusion company, ended with charges of Medicare fraud. Noble’s directors had little health care experience. And federal regulators did nothing to block or thoroughly vet the acquisition, despite red flags. Noble acquired the hospitals after charming local leaders desperate to save beloved local institutions. The saga that followed Noble into these towns may well serve as a warning flare from the rolling wheat and corn fields between Kansas City and St. A recent report found that 441, more than 20%, were at risk of closing or losing services. Financially distressed rural hospitals like Audrain are targets, putting vulnerable communities at the mercy of firms whose North Star is profit, rather than patient health. health care system investments increased twentyfold from 2000 to 2018, and have only accelerated since. Private equity investors, with their focus on buying cheap and reaping quick returns, are moving voraciously into the U.S. What’s more, in addition to Medicare and Medicaid funds, Noble had received nearly $20 million in federal covid relief money in the 18 months before it closed the hospitals - funds whose use is still not fully accounted for. The company should have had plentiful resources to keep them afloat: Noble was launched in late 2019 by Nueterra Capital, a venture capital and private equity firm that has raised millions of dollars to back dozens of health care companies, according to Nueterra’s portfolio and federal filings. Noble, a three-year-old startup that acquired Audrain and nearby Callaway Community Hospital, offered explanations on social media, including “a technology issue” and a need to “restructure their operations” to keep the hospitals financially viable. She wouldn’t abandon them.Ī week later Noble Health had the final word: It locked the doors. The hospital - with 40 beds and five clinics - typically saw 24 to 50 emergency room cases a day, treating patients from the surrounding 1,000-plus acre farms and tiny no-stoplight towns, she said.
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