Iowa agrees to treat $4 million owed to taxpayers as a ‘lower priority’ – Iowa Capital Dispatch

Iowa’s efforts to gather nearly $4 million owed to taxpayers by a bankrupt nursing residence chain have suffered a serious setback.

Court docket information point out the QHC Services nursing residence chain, which filed for chapter late final 12 months, owes the state greater than $3.9 million in unpaid “high quality assurance charges.”

The state had been negotiating with QHC to have that debt handled as the next precedence so that when the chain is offered and the corporate’s property are liquidated, Iowa taxpayers can be among the many collectors first in line when the corporate’s money owed are settled.

In current months, nonetheless, the deliberate sale value for the chain has plummeted, from $12 million to $4.5 million. As well as, the legal professional common’s workplace lately deserted efforts to have the $3.9 million owed to the state handled as a high-priority debt that will be paid off forward of different obligations.

Lynn Hicks, spokesman for the Iowa legal professional common’s workplace, stated that whereas the state continues to say its declare for the unpaid charges, it has “agreed to have its declare handled as a decrease precedence to protect the case, as we felt it was in one of the best curiosity of the well being and security of residents that they not be subjected to a sudden closing.”

Treating the $3.9 million debt as a decrease precedence means different collectors, a few of whom are additionally owed tens of millions, can transfer forward of Iowa within the listing of collectors hoping to get well a portion of what they’re owed.

Hicks stated the legal professional common’s workplace doesn’t know what impression its determination can have by way of the state’s means to get well some or all the $3.9 million that’s owed. The quantity that’s in the end recovered, he stated, will rely upon the sale closing and varied contingent property.

“Any estimate can be extremely unreliable, and we might not have an thought till the chapter plan is filed,” he stated. “The prolonged size of the negotiations between the customer and debtors, the continued accrual of civil financial penalties and different money owed, and the altering posture of the case have made an estimated restoration tough to find out.”

Hicks stated that final week the chapter courtroom decided the deliberate $4.5 million sale of QHC Services to Blue Diamond Equities meets all necessities for a good-faith sale and represents the best and finest value that may be obtained for the property being offered underneath these circumstances.

QHC Services has been cited for a minimum of 184 regulatory violations up to now 22 months and owes a minimum of $5 million to state and federal taxpayers although unpaid fines, unpaid charges and advance funds for resident care.

Chain filed for chapter owing the state $3.9 million 

The $3.9 million that QHC owes to the state is tied to high quality assurance charges that every one Iowa nursing houses pay to the state’s Division of Well being and Human Providers. The quarterly charges have the impact of artificially inflating a facility’s price of doing enterprise.

That elevated expense permits the amenities to attract down extra in Medicaid reimbursement from the federal authorities for resident care, offsetting the price of the charges they’ve paid to the state.

By legislation, the care amenities are supposed to make use of any further income collected by means of that course of to extend the pay of direct care employees and different staffers — which is why the charges are labeled “high quality assurance evaluation charges.”

It’s a round, however authorized, technique of accelerating the income collected by nursing houses and has been accepted by the federal authorities in Iowa and different states.

QHC’s path to chapter dates again to final 12 months when firm proprietor Jerry Voyna died. His widow, Nancy Voyna, took over the corporate, which filed for chapter.

In courtroom filings, Nancy Voyna stated that after her husband’s loss of life it was found the corporate had not been paying the quarterly high quality assurance charges, leaving an gathered debt of just about $4 million.

She died weeks later, leaving the QHC chain to her son, who continued his mom’s efforts to pursue a sale of the corporate and all of its property. In late February, Blue Diamond Equities, also called Blue Care Properties, submitted a letter to QHC agreeing to buy QHC for $11.6 million.

As much as $1.4 million owed federal taxpayers shall be forgiven

On the time of its provide, the principal proprietor of Blue Diamond was Shmuel Haikins. Howard Weiss, who has a monetary stake in a gaggle of California nursing houses, was performing as Blue Diamond’s monetary backer. The 2 males allegedly supplied QHC with paperwork displaying they’d the cash in hand to finish such a sale.

Their provide triggered an public sale, at which Cedar Well being Group, an East Coast improvement firm, bid $12.1 million — $100,000 greater than Blue Diamond. That left Blue Diamond because the backup bidder in case the deliberate sale to Cedar Well being went south, which it shortly did, leaving Blue Diamond because the profitable bidder.

Blue Diamond, nonetheless, instantly reached the identical conclusion as Cedar Well being — that $12 million was greater than it wished to pay, and it sought the courtroom’s approval to enter into a brand new settlement that will allow it to purchase QHC for simply $4.5 million, with the chain’s three most troubled care amenities shut down and excluded from the deal.

Final week, the courtroom accepted a settlement settlement involving the $2.2 million that, eventually rely, represents the rising amount of cash nonetheless owed to federal taxpayers by QHC for unpaid fines and advance funds for resident care.

That settlement requires as much as $1,458,408 of that debt to be forgiven.

The particular phrases of the settlement name for Blue Diamond to pay the federal authorities a minimum of $692,263 to resolve nearly $1.7 million in claims owed by the QHC amenities included within the sale, whereas QHC pays the federal authorities a minimum of $82,639 to settle $551,000 in claims tied to the three closed amenities excluded from the sale.

The skilled-nursing amenities owned by QHC when it first filed for chapter are the Crestridge Care Heart in Maquoketa; Crestview Acres in Marion; Sunnycrest Nursing Heart in Dysart; QHC Fort Dodge Villa; QHC Humboldt North; QHC Humboldt South; QHC Mitchellville; and QHC Winterset North. QHC’s two assisted residing facilities are QHC Madison Sq. in Winterset and QHC Villa Cottages of Fort Dodge.

The three closed amenities that Blue Diamond has excluded from the sale are QHC Humboldt South, QHC Mitchellville and Sunnycrest.