Emergency room reopens under new management at Lauderdale Community Hospital
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - The emergency room doors are once again open at Lauderdale Community Hospital. A court-appointed receiver tapped a new management group to come in and lead the facility after months of uncertainty, non-payment of employees, and closure of the ER.
The ER reopened on Tuesday and hospital officials said they’ve seen dozens of patients since then. As of Thursday afternoon, four patients were admitted in the inpatient area. Lauderdale Community Hospital is federally designated as a Critical Access Hospital.
“I can tell you there are a lot of unpaid bills, that I know about,”said Molly Williams.
Williams is the Dyersburg attorney and receiver appointed by a federal judge in Memphis to first investigate then manage Lauderdale Community Hospital in Ripley. She said it’s been difficult to grasp the true financial picture of the facilty because its former operators Empower HMS provided un-audited statements. Then in January, a new entity iHealthcare assumed control of the hospital.
“iHealthcare is a different entity than Empower, but it does employ some of the same people,” she said.
A bankruptcy filing is currently underway.
The first order of business for Williams was paying employees, some of whom have worked without a check for a month, and were due back pay. Williams says TennCare jumped into action and sent a payment upon learning of her plight. She credits state officials with helping to get the hospital back up and running.
“When I told them I didn’t have money for the employees they cut a paper check. TennCare never lets you cut a paper check, and they let a lawyer in Nashville pick it up and take it to the bank," she said.
After talks with a handful of management companies, Williams chose Cohesive Healthcare out of Oklahoma. That firm has stepped in to run 5 former Empower HMS hospitals, like Lauderdale.
Cohesive is not the same company area officials alluded to in March, when they indicated that a buyer for the hospital had been found. Williams said she was impressed by Cohesive’s leadership and vision, and that is why she chose them to run the facility.
“We have got to get the billing up, so we have revenue to run the hospital,” she said.
Godwin Feh is Cohesive’s founder and gave WMC Action News 5 a tour of the hospital Thursday, which was full of activity, from the nurse’s station on the inpatient wing to a now-open emergency room.
“The hospital has a great reputation in the community,” he said, “I’ve been to nursing homes, and patients are looking to come back here for care.”
Feh said area doctors accepted calls to come back to work under the hospital’s new leadership.
Feh’s team is currently interviewing for a new CEO at Lauderdale and is planning to expand services and reopen the operating room, with a goal of putting the embattled facility back in the black.
“We are going to be here as long as the receiver and the trustee and the community want us to be involved,” Feh said.
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