Staff writer
HMC/CAH Consolidated, Inc., operators of Hillsboro Community Hosptial, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday.
For the immediate future, local residents won’t notice any differences in the operation of Hillsboro Community Hospital.
“It’s business as usual,” Cheri Barton, Hillsboro Community Hospital’s new chief executive officer said. “We will take care of our obligations and move forward in a positive manner.”
Barton referred all other questions to the legal department at the HMC/CAH corporate office in Kansas City, Mo.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a business to continue operating while it attempts to restructure its debt and payment obligations to creditors.
HMC/CAH issued an official press release Wednesday, which included the following statement from HMC/CAH president Larry Arthur:
“The strategic decision to pursue a financial restructuring through Chapter 11 will now allow us to protect our financial position and to ensure that the company will remain a viable healthcare resource in the communities where we operate.
“HMC/CAH has not waivered, and will not waiver, from its ultimate goal to rebuild the rural hospital infrastructure of its hospitals. The company’s continuing mission is to be the best Critical Access Hospital System in the US, and this reorganization will allow us to fulfill that undertaking.”
HMC/CAH and the 12 hospitals it operates in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina, reported a net loss of $15,951,712 over fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011, according to bankruptcy documents posted Wednesday by the Western Missouri district of the United States Bankruptcy Court.
HMC/CAH has until Feb. 7 to file its formal plan for resolving its chapter 11 obligations and emerging from bankruptcy, according to the bankruptcy court calendar of deadlines and hearings.