The Arkansas Leader

Seek buyer for hospitalFree Access


As North Metro Medical Center in Jacksonville struggles to keep its doors open, another hospital operated by Allegiance Health Management, the same group that runs North Metro, could go into receivership for not paying its bills.

Federal Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. – the same judge overseeing the longstanding school desegregation case that now involves the Jacksonville- North Pulaski School District – is set to make a decision on River Valley Medical Center in Dardanelle on March 21.

The Dardanelle hospital is one of three operated in the state by Allegiance Health Management of Shreveport, La. Two of the top officers, CEO Rock Bordelon and CFO Don Cameron, are also owners of North Metro Medical Center in Jacksonville, which also has its share of financial difficulties. The other Allegiance-operated hospital, which is in Eureka Springs, is also having money problems.

Allegiance Health Management’s shaky finances should serve as a warning to communities in Arkansas and elsewhere that they could lose their hospitals if new owners are not found who could provide first-class health services to local residents.

River Valley Medical Center is several months late on lease payments and owes Yell County as much as $90,000. The hospital’s laboratory is no longer functioning. The hospital’s blood supplier hasn’t been paid and is about to cut off the hospital’s blood supplies. Vendors are no longer supplying basic lab supplies and radiology supplies. Vendors are also repossessing lifesaving equipment, including a ventilator.

The hospital is blaming its problems on Medicare being late paying critical-access facilities. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals are shrinking in many parts of the country, along with state funding, which will almost certainly result in more rural hospitals closing.

Locally, North Metro still has a number of suits and liens open that were filed by the state Department of Finance and administration for back taxes and by the state’s workforce division for failure to pay unemployment taxes. North Metro is inadequately staffed as is its emergency room, which local responders bypass for other hospitals that meet trauma-care standards. This is not meant to criticize the good people at North Metro but to point out the hospital’s precarious financing is putting patients at risk.

According to reporter Rick Kron, federal lawsuits against Allegiance include one filed in 2017 in the U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana by Arkansas, Texas and others as plaintiffs with North Metro and other Allegiance-related hospitals as defendants over fraudulent claims.

The nine-count suit claims that North Metro and other Allegiance-related facilities were involved in “a scheme to manipulate Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and other government-funded health-insurance programs for false and fraudulent claims made or caused to be made through the payment of false claims for geriatric psychiatric services in violation of the Federal False Claims Act.”

Even though eight of the nine counts have been dismissed, the suit is still open.

Another federal case, filed by the government in 2012 in the U.S. District Court for Western Mississippi, claims Allegiance maintained and used false records to file false claims to collect government funds that it didn’t legally have the right to. It is still open with the most recent movement Tuesday when a notice of service of prediscovery disclosure by Allegiance Health Management was filed.

The best outcome would be for a qualified buyer who would make North Metro a top-rated hospital before it closes it doors. Jacksonville officials, medical professionals and civic groups should work with respected groups such as Baptist Health with an outstanding record of attracting top-flight physicians and nurses who will serve local patients and others from surrounding counties.

This community deserves the best, including a huge investment in quality medical care. A qualified buyer for North Metro will need all the financial incentives a community has to offer, such as low-interest loans and perhaps generous donations from local benefactors that would bring back North Metro’s glory days.

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