CEO of company that operates 4 hospitals under investigation

The CEO of a health care company whose holdings include a hospital in St. Louis is under civil and criminal investigation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday.

The newspaper cited a court filing in which the U.S. Trustee’s office accused Americore Holdings’ CEO Grant White of mismanagement and said he “has not operated the hospitals in a manner that is consistent with public safety and welfare.”

The documents were filed this month in Americore Holdings’ bankruptcy case by acting U.S. Trustee Paul Randolph, whose department oversees bankruptcy cases.

An email message left with Americore was not immediately returned. Americore’s attorney filed a motion to withdraw as counsel on Wednesday, citing “irreconcilable differences” with White.

Americore, whose parent company is based in Florida, bought St. Louis’ St. Alexius Hospital out of bankruptcy last year. In December, Americore filed for bankruptcy in a case that includes St. Alexius and three other hospitals.

Court documents say one of the hospitals, Ellwood City Medical Center in Pennsylvania, was raided by the FBI on Jan. 30, and White’s home was raided the day before.

Randolph said White had “improperly siphoned money” from debtors for his personal benefit, but said he did not believe that White has been charged with a crime.

Americore’s attorney said in January that St. Alexius Hospital was concerned that it would run out of some medical supplies and food if cash was not made immediately available, the documents said.

Randolph filed the documents as part of a motion urging the court to appoint a trustee specifically to oversee the bankruptcy case, or otherwise dismiss it altogether.

St. Alexius serves a higher portion of uninsured patients, and those who rely on Medicare and Medicaid. It has been sold multiple times in recent decades, and struggled financially. It had negative profit margins for 2015, 2016 and 2017 — the three most recent years with available data from the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition.

The hospital’s former owner, Promise Healthcare Group, filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The bankruptcy court authorized Promise to sell its ownership stake in the hospital to Americore in January 2019.

Randolph said in the documents that closing the Americore hospitals “would be devastating to the communities they serve, both from a patient health and economic perspective.”

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