With state and local governments facing daunting financial challenges, chapter 9 for "government units" is becoming a more likely option. In California, state law permits communities to form "health care districts" that are authorized to issue bonds through public offerings and use the proceeds to establish health care facilities within the district.
Health Care Committee
Committees
There is no question that the nursing home industry has been battered by bankruptcies and receiverships in recent years, sometimes resulting in the closing of the home. Many factors have impacted the financial viability of nursing homes, not the least of which is the fact that nursing homes depend on Medicare and Medicaid for most of their revenues.
Bankruptcy Code §363 asset sales are becoming an increasingly attractive method employed by companies in the health care industry to monetize assets. My firm has seen the impact in our own caseload with three diagnostic imaging facilities (DIFs) we are advising recently utilizing 363 sales.
Health Care Committee Members Paul Rundell and Bobby Guy advise of 10 jointly administered cases before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Tennessee (Middle District) in which the debtors prevailed over arguments by the U.S. Trustee for Region 8 (UST) to the effect that BAPCPA effectively eliminated national health care cases.
This article examines four 2008 patient care ombudsman cases. In re Bridgeport Holdings Inc., __ B.R. ___, 2008 WL 2235330 (Bankr. D. Del. May 30, 2008), is not a health care case, but it provides important warnings to the directors and officers of health care businesses considering sales of the business or its assets.
Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP (Waller Lansden), home to one of the United States' largest and most comprehensive healthcare law practices, conducted a survey of hospitals entitled "Hospital Investments in Competitiveness: Financing Options." Waller Lansden published the survey in the December issue of HealthLeaders.
"Hospital Insolvency: The Looming Crisis," a recent study by the Healthcare Industry Group of global professionals services firm Alvarez & Marsal, shows that more than half of U.S. hospitals are now technically insolvent or in danger of becoming insolvent. On that point, Matthew Marcos, Senior Director of the Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group, states:
In three recent New Jersey chapter 11 hospital sales, the unsettled legal issues associated with attempts to assign a hospital’s HHS provider agreement and/or its National Provider Identifier (NPI) without assigning the liabilities stemming from those agreements and NPIs were either avoided or postponed, rather than litigated.
I find it interesting that a lifetime of experience can lead you to a point where what you’ve mastered has an impact on a whole new segment of an industry you’ve not considered.
Health care bankruptcies present debtor’s counsel with a whole host of unique issues. Should a patient care ombudsman be appointed?
Co-Chair
MERU
Charlotte, NC
(617) 290-2449
Co-Chair
FTI Consulting, Inc.
Palm Beach Gardens, FL
(617) 970-7383
Communications Manager
Dentons, Associate
Chicago, Illinois, USA, IL
(847) 790-6473
Education Director
Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, P.C.
Morristown, NJ
(973) 889-4127
Membership Relations Director
Maslon LLP
Minneapolis, MN
(612) 672-8301
Newsletter Editor
Perkins Coie LLP
Chicago, IL
(602) 909-4424
Special Projects Leader
Gibbins Advisors
Nashville, TN
(615) 696-6556