I concluded a post recently by saying that the big corporate hospices had won another battle, and that it was going to be even harder for the small guy to make it. Guess, I may have overestimated the health of the big hospices. Trinity Hospice, which is a subsidiary of Sunrise Senior Living (NYSE: SRZ), is shutting it's doors. Here is the "announcement" within their most recent financial report:
In October 2008, the Company determined not to provide any additional funding for ongoing operations to our Trinity subsidiary due to the continued losses experienced by that subsidiary. As a result, the Company expects to write-off the remaining goodwill and other intangible assets related to Trinity of approximately $9.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. As a result of this decision to cease funding by the Company, Trinity's board of directors has decided it will discontinue operations by the end of the year.
Trinity's website is already gone, so I can't figure out how many offices Trinity had. I know there are a lot of Trinity Hospices across the nation, but I can't quite figure out if they were all related. There is a press release from the time Sunrise acquired Trinity that says that Trinity was the eighth largest hospice in the nation and that the purchase price was 68 million dollars.
I guess there is pain all around the hospice industry. I'd love to know if the Medicare Cap, bad business practices, or just plain life was what brought this company to its knees.
If you know more about this, please feel free to leave comments to supplement the limited information I have here.
8 comments:
Knowing someone who used to work for Trinity, they closed down and abandoned most of their patients on Friday. Of course there is a transition for some, but many nurses and staff were given a 4-hour get out. No severance, just a boot. Thankfully in some areas, such as Casa Grande AZ, other hospices in the area took up their work force and patients. But, Trinity closed well over two dozen branches, in some communities where they were the only hospice.
As far as the reason for its failure, it was poor business practices, the failure of Sunrise Senior Living to understand a capitated payment system (they are mostly private pay), and the loss of key staff. The past CEO, Steve Plochocki, left the company in a great position upon sale to Sunrise, but the new CEO hired like minded staff and they drove the company into the ground. Want to lower nuring pay...check. Want to hire just new grads to work for below market rate...check. Want to increase patient load...check. Want to to rotate management with unexperienced staff...check. Some centers lost 70% of their patients prior to being shut down. That, combined with the OIG investigation and that Sunrise seems to believe that they can dodge any fines it by shutting Trinity down...well...the rest is history. http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS148974+18-Mar-2008+PRN20080318
im sure it is poor business practices - everything about money all the time -
I have a bad taste for hospice - what a joke - the killing doctors - and then they are not there when it happens!!!!!
Sunrise shut down all of the Trinity's Nation wide I believe that there was 29 centers total that had to close their door's. Most of which are closing on 11/14/2008. some of the staff were informed of the closure a little over a week ago. While yes the Nurse's will be able to get other jobs, some staff will not and when a center closes in a small community it affects the whole community, not just the patients and the staff.
The patients were transferred to other hospices if they chose to, they were not abandoned.Some Nurses and HHA, SW and SC were kept on to help with the transfers. The staff had a two day notice and there was no severance package. It was poor business practices, people who did not understand the payment system and some Sunrise Commmunites would not give Trinity a chance until it was forced on them from upper management. Not to mention the new offices that were opened in areas with numerous Sunrise communites and getting the provider number taking longer (if ever)than expected. The Trinity employees that I knew were professional, hard working and it was all about the patient and family. To all the Trinity employees my thoughts are with you as you go through this difficult time
Simply put, there are too many hospices in the US. Rather than a sign of "what is to come", this Trinity shutdown is the latest example of "what has come" to the hospice industry. We will continue to see the closure , or consolidation, of hospices with offices serving an average daily census of less than 100.
Tim Cousounis
MDVantage Palliative Care Group
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I am curious as to why the employee severance package was changed one to two days before the closing? I am also curious as to why the CEO of only six months recieved a 300,000.00 severance package. What did she do that was worth that kind of money? They could have spread that money around to the emploees who really needed it, instead of lining someones pockete who wasn't even there long enough to make a difference one way or the other.
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