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KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |CMS denies blame for lack of paychecks at Arkansas hospital
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Hundreds of employees at an Ark-La-Tex hospital were asked to show up for their next shift even though they weren't paid. Medical Park Hospital in Hope, Arkansas did not issue paychecks to about 280 employees Friday. The administrator of the hospital told KSLA News 12 Friday afternoon that it's because of a lack of Medicaid payouts, but the agency that controls medicare and medicaid payouts later said they aren't to blame for the lack of payroll for the employees.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they plan on looking into the case further and are limited in what they can release, but as a preliminary statement, they said the lack of paychecks isn't because of a lack of paid claims.
The hospital administrator at Medical Park Hospital said the company in charge of getting the money from the government to the hospital isn't efficient. He says Pinnacle Business Solutions has not paid the hospital $1 million worth of Medicaid claims. According to cms.gov, Pinnacle holds a multi-million dollar contract to handle several kinds of claims in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
The company didn't return any phone calls this afternoon.
The reasons why paychecks weren't issued didn't really matter to some employees at the hospital. They did not want to be identified, but said they are struggling with how this might affect patient care.
"Nobody is going to come to work if they're not going to get paid. And they might be short staffed now. They're going to find, they're going to be in a mess now if they don't hand out a paycheck," said one of the nurses who finally decided to work her shift for the good of the patients.
The hospital's administrator claims that Pinnacle has now lost its contract with the government, but CMS did not confirm that.
Related story:
Hope hospital unable to meet payroll
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