Lee County officials tout management team for proposed hospital

LEESBURG — As a Department of Community Health ruling on a certificate of need application for construction of a 60-bed hospital in Lee County moves closer to a decision, something of a choosing of sides has developed in Dougherty and Lee counties as citizens — some with more than general interest — have either voiced support for or opposition to the facility.

A presentation by Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals President Monty Veazey on the impact a Lee hospital would have on Albany’s Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital became an opening public salvo that has, essentially, left officials with the Dougherty County Commission and the Lee County Commission at odds over the proposed facility.

Even as the 60-day window for the DCH decision ticks down, the Dougherty Commission has funded a $35,000 impact study to determine whether it should withdraw its opposition to the Lee CON application or continue to fight its approval.

With Phoebe officials releasing results of a study that indicated a hospital in Lee County could result in more than $40 million a year in revenue losses for the Albany hospital, a growing sense of enmity has developed between pro Lee hospital and anti Lee hospital factions. Dialog and discourse between the two groups have grown increasingly more vitriolic, especially on social media, leaving many trying to weed out fact from fiction.

Lee County Development Authority Director Winston Oxford said Friday the Lee Commission plans to give an update on the hospital at the commission’s meeting Tuesday evening, an update that will include information on the bonding agent that will help with construction financing of the $123 million facility and on Health Care Facilities Partners of Franklin, Tenn., the company that will manage the hospital from inception to completion and beyond.

“I think it’s important that people know who we’re dealing with in the hospital group,” Oxford said. “There has been a good bit of misinformation put out there by people who are opposed to the hospital, but so much of that stuff is just baseless. Our hospital operator (HCFP President G. Edward Alexander) has a very impressive resume, and you better believe we’ve checked out the bonding agent (MedEquities) and our responsibilities under Georgia law.

“Some people who oppose the hospital have said that the people of Lee County could end up paying for the hospital (in the event of a failure). While we’re certainly confident that (failure is) not going to happen, it’s important to point out that Georgia law clearly states that neither the county nor its taxpayers will be held responsible for the ultimate payment of bond indebtedness.”

Oxford pointed to Georgia Code, which reads:

No bonds or other obligations of and no indebtedness incurred by any authority shall constitute an indebtedness or obligation of the state of Georgia or of any county, municipal corporation or political subdivision thereof, nor shall any act of any authority in any manner constitute or result in the creation of an indebtedness of this state or of any such county, municipal corporation or political subdivision. All such bonds and obligations shall be payable solely from the revenues therein pledged to such payments, including pledged rentals, sales proceeds, insurance proceeds and condemnation awards; and no holder of any such bonds or obligations shall ever have the right to compel any exercise of the taxing power of this state or any county, municipal corporation or political subdivision thereof, nor to enforce the payment thereof against any property …

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that the bonds we will use to finance the hospital are non-recourse bonds,” Oxford said. “The taxpayers will not, by Georgia law, be held liable for payment. If you compare it to the bonds used to finance Phoebe’s purchase of Palmyra (Medical Center), those are not non-recourse bonds. They have been guaranteed by the Dougherty County Commission through the Hospital Authority (of Albany-Dougherty County).”

The Lee Development Authority is listed as the agent responsible for the proposed hospital’s bonds.

MedEquities describes itself as a “self-managed, self-administered real estate investment trust that invests in health care properties and health care-related debt investments.” The company’s 24-facility portfolio, which boasts 2,345 beds at properties in Texas, California, Nevada and South Carolina, includes 17 nursing facilities, two acute-care hospitals, two long-term acute-care hospitals, one assisted living facility, one inpatient rehab facility and one medical office building.

Anderson, who is listed as the principal of LCMC OPCO, which applied for the Lee hospital certificate of need, heads HCFP, which says it “offers turnkey health care facility development designed to build revenue sources” and “structure win-win partnerships between hospitals and their physicians.”

That company has overseen development of five acute-care hospitals in Texas, and one each in California, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. The company also has three 60-bed acute-care facilities under various stages of development in Lee County, Florida and in Texas.

HCFP has also managed development and construction of ambulatory surgery centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio (three). California, Georgia (five), New Mexico, Tennessee (five) and Wyoming. The company has ASC projects underway in Florida (three), Texas (four) and Ohio.

Among the services HCFP says it provides for projects it manages are facilities planning, medical staff recruitment, budgeting, operational planning, financing, equipment, hospital operations documentation, information systems planning, board structure, licensing and accreditation, compliance and risk management, and marketing.

Once the facility is open, the company says it assists with maintenance and accreditation, insurance, managed care contracts, staffing schedules, advertising and promotions, compliance planning, co-management with physicians, clinical operations management, quality assurance and clinical education, among other services.

Tuesday’s Lee County Commission meeting starts at 6 p.m.