Hospital In Hillsboro, Kansas, Averts Shutoff Of Lights After Paying Delinquent Utility Bill

An eleventh-hour payment of $16,644 for delinquent utility bills averted a threatened cutoff of electricity at tiny Hillsboro Community Hospital in central Kansas.

The city, 50 miles north of Wichita and home to about 3,000 people, said in a brief news release that it gave notice to the hospital on Jan. 8 that it would shut off utilities effective at noon Friday. It received the payment in the morning.

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Earlier this week, Paine told KCUR that the hospital’s owner, North Kansas City-based EmpowerHMS, fell behind on three months of utility payments and had made no effort in recent weeks to communicate with the town.

“When we first started talking to them about the delinquency, they said, ‘You really have to wait until we get our Medicare payments in late January or February,’” Paine said, referring to officials at EmpowerHMS. “And then they sent us $12,000 and we haven’t heard from them since.”

That $12,000 check was returned for insufficient funds.

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On Jan. 8, the Bank of Hays petitioned to foreclose on the hospital after it defaulted on a 2015 construction loan with an outstanding balance of nearly $10 million. The facility opened in 2017, replacing an older building.

Read more: https://www.kcur.org/post/hospital-hillsboro-kansas-averts-shutoff-lights-after-paying-delinquent-utility-bill#stream/0

I wonder if the payment will bounce? I've posted a couple of article in the Missouri Group that indicate that EmpowerHMS is having financial difficulties with other rural hospitals in several states and that workers weren't getting paid.