NO CLE - ABI-Live: Hospital Bankruptcies – Unique Challenges and Current Hot Topics

There have been a number of recent bankruptcy filings by large and high profile healthcare providers, such as the filings of Verity Health System of California, Inc., in Los Angeles (the second largest hospital bankruptcy case in American history), Hospital Acquisition LLC and 25 related debtors d/b/a Promise Health and American Academic Health System (Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher Hospital in Philadelphia) in Wilmington, Delaware, and Astria Health in Yakima, Washington. Additionally, EmpowerHMS owned or helped manage a rural hospital empire that encompassed 18 facilities across eight states. After funding from a controversial lab-billing venture dried up, 12 of the hospitals entered bankruptcy and eight closed their doors. There has also been a steady stream of lower profile cases, including Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Illinois, Penobscot Valley Hospital in Maine, and Springfield Hospital, Inc., in Vermont, and it appears that there are more filings in store. The webinar will discuss (i) the reasons for this growing trend of healthcare cases, (ii) the unique challenges in those cases, which involve not only the typical payment of creditor claims, but also the care of patients, (iii) the particular issues that arise uniquely in this class of cases, including jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, treatment of provider agreements, the intersection of nonprofit law and bankruptcy law, and treatment of medical malpractice claims, and (iv) whether this trend of healthcare filings will continue.