Posted on Aug 16, 2022
Private equity-backed owner left Missouri hospital staff uninsured before they were unemployed
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The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.
The first unexpected bill arrived in December, just weeks before Tara Lovell’s husband of 40 years died from bladder cancer.
Lovell worked as an ultrasound technologist at the local Audrain Community Hospital, in Mexico, Missouri, and was paying more than $400 a month for health insurance through her job. The town’s struggling hospital, the sole health care provider and major employer, had changed ownership in recent years, selling in March 2021 to Noble Health, a private equity-backed startup whose managers had never run a hospital.
The first unexpected bill arrived in December, just weeks before Tara Lovell’s husband of 40 years died from bladder cancer.
Lovell worked as an ultrasound technologist at the local Audrain Community Hospital, in Mexico, Missouri, and was paying more than $400 a month for health insurance through her job. The town’s struggling hospital, the sole health care provider and major employer, had changed ownership in recent years, selling in March 2021 to Noble Health, a private equity-backed startup whose managers had never run a hospital.
Private equity-backed owner left Missouri hospital staff uninsured before they were unemployed
Posted from kcur.org
Medical
Health
Insurance
Mexico
Posted >1 y ago
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Hmmm....borrowed a page from tfg's business play book ? After getting millions of taxpayer $? MO legislature might want to actually do something about regulatory guardrails on business models vs individual privacy.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The family of Michael Batty, 63, a hospital janitor who had an aortic aneurysm at work in January 2022, said they had no idea his life insurance had been terminated for nonpayment. His daughter, Stephanie Hinnah, was the beneficiary of the policy — with an expected payout of $60,000. She was initially told she wouldn’t get a cent because the policy had lapsed before her father’s death.
Hinnah, who endured months of stress, said her father would not have wanted to leave his daughter in debt. Unfortunately, she said, “my dad doesn’t really have a voice to speak about it.”
To pay for her father’s cremation, Hinnah raised $700 by selling Batty’s belongings in a garage sale. She said she owed the funeral home about $8,000. She filed an appeal to the Hartford, and months passed. In late July, after KHN contacted the Hartford, a spokesperson, Suzanne Barlyn, told KHN that “after further review” the insurer would pay the benefits."
..."The family of Michael Batty, 63, a hospital janitor who had an aortic aneurysm at work in January 2022, said they had no idea his life insurance had been terminated for nonpayment. His daughter, Stephanie Hinnah, was the beneficiary of the policy — with an expected payout of $60,000. She was initially told she wouldn’t get a cent because the policy had lapsed before her father’s death.
Hinnah, who endured months of stress, said her father would not have wanted to leave his daughter in debt. Unfortunately, she said, “my dad doesn’t really have a voice to speak about it.”
To pay for her father’s cremation, Hinnah raised $700 by selling Batty’s belongings in a garage sale. She said she owed the funeral home about $8,000. She filed an appeal to the Hartford, and months passed. In late July, after KHN contacted the Hartford, a spokesperson, Suzanne Barlyn, told KHN that “after further review” the insurer would pay the benefits."
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