THOMASVILLE — Efforts to secure supplemental Medicaid funding at Archbold Memorial Hospital went beyond alleged faked meeting minutes for the Hospital Authority of the City of Thomasville, and also included Glen-Mor Nursing Home.

In 2004 and 2005, documents were sent to the Georgia Department of Community Health claiming that the hospital was publicly owned and operated by the hospital authority, according to documents released by the state agency under an open records request.

The 2004 claims were made in relation to Archbold Memorial Hospital and the nursing home, the records show.

Attestations of public status were sent on behalf of the hospital in June and December 2004, and on behalf of the nursing home in June 2004. Letterheads used with the attestations included the hospital authority, the hospital and Archbold Medical Center, parent company of the hospital and nursing home.

Archbold Memorial Hospital is privately owned.

The medical center announced Feb. 15 that an internal investigation performed by a law firm representing the hospital in a lawsuit determined that former chief financial officer William Sellers Jr. “submitted to the state a set of minutes of non-existent meetings and discussions of the authority that implied operational control was occurring.” Sellers resigned the same day.

The minutes were submitted “in an effort to show that John D. Archbold Memorial Hospital was entitled to certain supplemental Medicaid funds.”

In the attestations submitted to the state in 2004 and 2005, the claim was made that the hospital authority exercised operational control of the hospital. Archold has not responded to a Times-Enterprise request for names of authority members.

“The authority is the owner of John D. Archbold Memorial Hospital,” the document dated June 21, 2004, said. “The authority retains ownership and ultimate authority for the operations of the hospital.”

The hospital received $773,939 in Medicaid upper payment limit adjustments that covered six months in 2003, $3.07 million in 2004, $3.03 millio in 2005, $2.46 million in 2006 and $1.2 million for 2007, documents obtained under the open records request said.

Glen-Mor Nursing Home received $663,009 for six months of fiscal year 2003, $1.01 million in 2004, $715,647 in 2005 and nothing for 2006.

Carr said in an e-mail that she could not immediately determine how much of those payments were above the amount for which Archbold was entitled.

Archbold announced in February that it is in discussions to correct previous submissions of documents and reimbursing the state if necessary.

“As we have reported in the past, as soon as Archbold discovered in

November 2007 that there were issues with documents previously submitted

to the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH), we immediately and

voluntarily disclosed those issues to DCH and launched a thorough and

exhaustive investigation, Archbold said in an e-mail statement Tuesday. “Since that time, we have been cooperating and we continue to cooperate fully with that agency.”



Reporter Alan Mauldin can be reached by calling (229) 226-2400, ext. 226.