Financial mess at Springfield Hospital sparks talk of new reporting rules By Colin Meyn Dec 19 2018, 2:33 AM | 0 comments Kevin Mullin Kevin Mullin is the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board. File photo by Mike Dougherty/VTDigger The head of the state’s hospital regulator said Springfield Hospital administrators withheld operational information during budget hearings and that new rules should be put in place to impose penalties on organizations that fail to make such disclosures in the future. The hospital in Windsor County has come under intense scrutiny following complaints from physicians and community members that it was failing to pay bills, leading to everything from empty heating fuel tanks, doctors buying their own medical supplies and hospital employees unable to get health care at some local practices because insurance payments were overdue. Get all of VTDigger's health care news. You'll never miss our health care coverage with our weekly headlines in your inbox. RELATED STORIES Springfield hospital chief executive resigns amid financial frustration Springfield Hospital can’t pay its bills. ‘It’s very unnerving.’ Kevin Mullin, head of the Green Mountain Care Board, said on Tuesday that officials were only starting to get a sense of what was happening with the hospital’s finances and why the chief financial officer and chief executive officer abruptly resigned this month. “There’s nothing to believe that anybody did anything inappropriate but until the analysis has been done you don’t know that for sure,” Mullin said. “The main thing is getting all the information together so people can … get the hospital on the right track.” Mullin said that a new CFO had been brought in from Quorum Health Resources, which was also hired a few months ago to consult on the hospital’s financial situation. The hospital has also hired an independent auditor to figure out the organization’s financial situation. While there is no evidence that wrongdoing contributed to the financial disarray, Mullin said he has come to believe that Springfield administrators failed to include important information in their latest budget presentation to the board. “I have seen evidence that they did not fully disclose things that they were doing, and that’s inappropriate,” Mullin said, declining to get into specifics. “I want to give them a chance to get a handle on things, but clearly when they were testifying before us in August they were aware of some things that we should have been aware of,” he said. “The way I first found out about the problem … was through a member of community, and that can’t happen,” he added. The board chair, who was previously a state senator, said regulatory changes were in order. “I definitely think there’s going to have to be some changes in that there will have to be rules or laws that require disclosure when certain things happen,” Mullin said. “We’re going to have to make changes and it will involve every hospital and some people won’t be happy with those changes.” Mullin said that the board was currently reviewing testimony from the administrators, which was given under oath, and that he had asked the hospital to let board staff join the review of Springfield’s finances. “We’re going through the transcripts to find out if anybody violated the oath they signed when they submitted the information. At this point, I can tell you I haven’t seen evidence of that taking place,” he said. The most important thing, he said, is to make sure that the Springfield community continued to have access to medical services, both at the hospital and clinics owned by the Springfield Medical Care Systems. “Certainly everyone’s attention is on Springfield now and we’ll see where this leads us,” he said. “Everybody wants to make sure people are going to be provided for.” Mullin and Human Services Secretary Al Gobeille met with Springfield Hospital administrators Monday and will meet again on Thursday for an update on the situation. The hospital put out a statement Tuesday about the ongoing review and administrative changes. “We recognize the urgency of our situation and are moving quickly to complete a thorough assessment and make timely improvements,” George Lamb, chair of the SMCS board, said in the statement. Josh Dufresne, chief of practice operations, will “serve as the primary administrative contact” until the appointment of an interim CEO and CFO are finalized, the statement said. “With the leadership and guidance of the SMCS and Springfield Hospital Boards of Directors, we are working diligently to address operational issues with a focus on improving cash flow, ensuring continued access to supplies and equipment and strengthening the trust of our patients, employees and community members,” Lamb said in the statement. Gobeille said that getting a handle on the hospital’s financial picture has been made more difficult by the immediate departure of the CFO. “It is not normal to have a CFO leave in a day nor is it normal or customary to have a CEO leave in a day. But when both do that, we become very concerned as to why,” he said. Gobeille, who previously served as chair of the care board, said the exact reasons for the departures were not entirely clear to him, but that the basic explanation was that there were “significant performance issues that then lead to financial issues.” “This is an HR matter — that’s what they said,” Gobeille said of the explanation he received from the hospital for the departures of Chief Executive Tim Ford and Chief Financial Officer Scott Whittemore. “My take is that there’s some things that were supposed happen that didn’t happen,” he said, such as properly managing finances, making tax payments and providing accurate reports to the hospital board and banks. “If something didn’t happen then we have to find out what that is,” he added. Gobeille agreed with Mullin that a broader discussion needed to be had about how state oversight can be improved at hospitals. “Once we’re done with the immediacy of this, we need to look at critical access hospitals. Are we getting the level of information we need?” the secretary said. “If there’s problems, they can reach out and communicate, and that wasn’t happening.”
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