Hospital in Roanoke Alabama Shuts Down Abruptly Last Week-ER Doctors Not Paid–Desperate Hospital With Big Debt

This is probably nothing new with the same situation of money being at the back end of the problem. There were big outstanding loans to the USDA and Medicare that were owed. The ER room doctors, who were contracted, are still owed money. This had to be a decision made in a hurry as the doctors were told last Friday to leave at 3 pm. Once the doctors left they hospital had to close and there was to be a special meeting to be held on how to slowly close the operation down but it didn’t happen that way.

Employees had not be told of the closure before the doctors were ordered to leave. The Roanoke Health Care Authority were hoping to find someone interested in buying the hospital. With the government being the biggest owed here, they can’t file bankruptcy and the total debt is not known yet and the cash flow is gone. One MD said when you begin running out of supplies, there’s simply no way the facility could stay open. Again, to expect a shut down over 2 weeks to be shortened to one night would be a shock for anyone as they had a lot of long term employees. BD

ROANOKE – Former employees of the Randolph Medical Center had some of their questions answered Tuesday night at the first Roanoke Health Care Authority meeting since the hospital closed.
Joe Davis, the hospital’s human resources director, apologized to the crowd of more than 50 people. He then told employees they will be paid as usual for the period ending Friday; money put into the state retirement program will be returned to employees when the hospital formally withdraws from the program; and vacation time will be paid with money returned to the hospital for retirement matching funds.
Gary Clark, the authority’s chairman, read a statement answering some questions laid out by former employees at Monday night’s Roanoke City Council meeting, before opening the floor to the crowd.
The hospital authority owes the USDA $5.9 million, owes Medicare $2.2 million, and has yet to pay a $350,000 debt to an independent contractor that provided emergency room doctors.

http://www.annistonstar.com/view/full_story/12457968/article-Employees-get-some-answers-about-Randolph-hospital-shutdown?instance=home_news