A robust Senate Republican is demanding solutions from a private-equity backed hospital in southeast Iowa amid revelations {that a} male nurse practitioner on the facility sexually assaulted 9 feminine sufferers there in 2021 and 2022.
The power, Ottumwa Regional Well being Middle, is a part of Lifepoint Well being Inc., a hospital system headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee, and owned by Apollo World Administration, the massive private-equity agency in New York co-founded by Leon Black.
The incidents on the Ottumwa facility got here to gentle late final yr after the overdose demise within the hospital of Devin Caraccio, 27, an authorized nurse practitioner who was a contract worker on the hospital, in accordance with its spokeswoman. After he died on the job in October, the Ottumwa police accessed his cellphone, discovering picture and video proof that he had assaulted the sufferers, in accordance with a police division investigator, Jeremy Tosh.
The police division stated in an announcement in December that “It’s suspected that all the victims had been asleep, or in a state of unconsciousness when the assaults came about.” Two of the victims haven’t but been recognized; two had been underneath 18, Tosh stated in an interview final week.
Eight-term Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa despatched a letter this month to the hospital, Lifepoint Well being and Apollo’s chief govt, Marc Rowan. In it, he requested whether or not monetary practices had decreased cash for affected person care and should have facilitated the sexual assault.
Considered one of Grassley’s questions was whether or not Apollo contractually shields itself from legal responsibility for actions that happen at hospitals it invests in, operates or manages. He additionally requested Apollo to element its “experience relating to rural or non-urban hospitals.”
A spokeswoman for Apollo stated: “Our funds are buyers in Lifepoint and we’re responding to the questions from Senator Grassley’s workplace.”
Along with Ottumwa Regional, Lifepoint has greater than 60 acute care hospitals in 17 states, together with Arizona, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. The power in Ottumwa, a city of 25,000, is one in all many rural hospitals owned by Lifepoint; it’s the solely hospital within the 432-square-mile county of Wapello.
Rural hospitals have skilled appreciable monetary strain lately, alleviated considerably by authorities aid funds disbursed in the course of the pandemic. In accordance with analysis from the KFF, a nonprofit group previously generally known as the Kaiser Household Basis, median working margins at rural hospitals earlier than the pandemic had been 1.5%, versus 5.2% for nonrural amenities.
In an announcement, Cara Clouse, a spokeswoman for Ottumwa Regional Well being Middle, stated the power is dedicated to the security and well-being of its sufferers.
“The heinous acts of this former contractor clearly violate our insurance policies and values, and our hearts are with all these affected by his misconduct,” she stated. “Ottumwa Regional continues to cooperate with legislation enforcement, and we’ve adopted quite a few reforms to additional strengthen our controls and safety to safeguard these we serve and forestall rogue dangerous actors.”
A Lifepoint spokeswoman stated that the corporate “is deeply disturbed by the horrible acts dedicated by a contractor at Ottumwa Regional Well being Middle,” and that the corporate is implementing “new insurance policies and reforms to assist guarantee sufferers and their households are protected.”
Over the previous decade, private-equity corporations like Apollo have spent a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} shopping for up well being care companies, together with nursing properties, hospital staffing firms and doctor practices. To finance these purchases, private-equity house owners usually burden the businesses they purchase with debt, then slash the businesses’ prices to extend earnings and attraction to potential consumers down the highway.
Within the enterprise of well being care, the drive for income can run counter to the objective of serving to sufferers, critics say.
Caraccio’s assaults on sufferers increase “severe questions with respect as to if these hospitals have the best assets or if they’re being loaded with overwhelming quantities of debt to the purpose the place they’re compelled to shift cash away from affected person care,” Grassley wrote in his letter. It additionally went to the CEO of Lifepoint Well being; the chief govt of Warburg Pincus, one other private-equity agency that owned Ottumwa Regional Well being Middle earlier than Apollo purchased it; and the CEO of Medical Properties Belief, an actual property funding firm that had performed a monetary transaction involving the power.
Apollo purchased the Ottumwa facility in 2015 from Warburg Pincus, and it grew to become a part of RegionalCare Hospital Companions. A flurry of transactions adopted: The following yr, Apollo merged RegionalCare with Capella, one other well being care firm, and in 2018 Apollo merged these operations with Lifepoint Well being.
Then, in 2019, Medical Properties Belief purchased the true property underneath 10 Lifepoint hospitals, together with Ottumwa Regional, leasing them again to the amenities. Personal-equity corporations typically conduct such transactions, producing money for themselves and their companions from the sale of actual property underlying the amenities, however typically saddling the hospitals with elevated prices in rents.
The sale and leaseback of the true property in Ottumwa doesn’t seem to have added to the power’s rental prices, in accordance with an individual briefed on the transaction.
However, such transactions are a priority to Grassley. “The fixed promoting and reselling of hospital belongings by non-public fairness, non-public capital, actual property funding trusts (REITs), and different associated entities raises questions with respect as to if these monetary maneuvers have negatively impacted the assets and thereby the care our nation’s rural hospitals present to their sufferers,” he famous in his letter.
The Lifepoint spokeswoman stated: “The actions of this one disturbed particular person don’t replicate who we’re, our core values, or how we function any hospital and by no means will be linked to Ottumwa Regional’s monetary standing. Lifepoint is pleased with the substantial investments we’ve made since changing into part of the Ottumwa group in 2018, together with the greater than $31 million in facility and expertise updates and for doctor recruitment and retention.”
A spokesman for Grassley stated the investigation by his workplace is ongoing. The recipients of his letter had been requested to reply by Friday, March 31. The spokeswoman for the hospital declined to touch upon the letter.
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