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After Platinum Health took control, all workers at two Missouri hospitals were fired
The news, under Noble Health letterhead, arrived at 5:05 p.m. on a Friday, with the subject line: “Urgent Notice.” Audrain Community Hospital, Paul Huemann’s workplace of 32 years, was letting workers go. Word travels fast in a small town. Huemann’s wife, Kym, first heard the bad news in the car when a friend who’d gotten […]
Collapse of private equity-backed Missouri hospitals mired employees in medical bills
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 […]
Buy and Bust: When private equity comes for rural hospitals
This article was originally published by Kaiser Health News. MEXICO, Mo. — When the new corporate owners of two rural hospitals suddenly announced they would stop admitting patients one Friday in March, Kayla Schudel, a nurse, stood resolute in the nearly empty lobby of Audrain Community Hospital: “You’ll be seen; the ER is open.” The […]