Latest Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez discusses the nexus of public safety, mental health and adversarial child experiences during a news conference following a summit in Albuquerque, N.M., Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.
Susan Montoya Bryan | AP
Latest Mexico’s attorney general announced an investigation Tuesday into Memorial Medical Center, the Las Cruces hospital operated by Lifepoint Health, to find out whether the ability, highlighted in a recent NBC News report, violated state laws by turning away indigent and low-income patients looking for care.
The attorney general, Raúl Torrez, said his office is examining Memorial’s patient policies for compliance with a state law and the hospital’s performance under the Latest Mexico statute governing provision of care to needy patients.
On the news conference announcing the investigation Tuesday, Torrez said he had just met with patients, in addition to providers at Memorial, to debate their concerns.
“It is clear to me that the management of this facility has failed to put the well-being and safety and care of their patients in the right place and in the right priority,” he said. “It is clear to me that decisions have been made out of a standpoint that’s seemingly motivated by profit, by maximizing the underside line and without due respect and due regard to patients under their care.” He also warned hospital management to not retaliate against anyone speaking out about its practices.
An NBC News report last month described allegations that Memorial Medical Center turned away cancer patients under its operator, Lifepoint Health, which was acquired by Apollo Global Management, the Latest York-based private-equity firm. Physician records and interviews with 13 patients detailed denials of care by the hospital or demands of upfront payments to secure treatments.
Barbara Quarrell, a former nurse at Memorial, is one patient who said the hospital turned her down for care after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2022. She recounted her story on the attorney general’s announcement.
Quarrell told NBC News she is inspired by the attorney general’s investigation. “It’s about time,” she said. “At Memorial, it’s all in regards to the money; it’s now not in regards to the patients. Why are they even in health care if it is not about patients?”
In an announcement, a spokeswoman for the hospital said, “Memorial Medical Center was surprised to learn of this investigation by Attorney General Torrez during his press conference today. We remain committed to expanding access to care and being a superb community partner in Las Cruces and Doña Ana County and might be cooperating fully with this investigation.”
Before publication and broadcast of the report in June, Memorial told NBC News it doesn’t deny care, but two of its top officials called to apologize to 2 patients who had told NBC News that they were turned away.
A spokeswoman for Apollo didn’t reply to an email looking for comment.
Lifepoint Health, the operator of Memorial, oversees the country’s largest chain of mostly rural hospitals — 62 acute care facilities in 16 states. Lifepoint is a subject of two U.S. Senate inquiries, together with other health care firms owned by private equity, NBC News has reported. The investigations aim to evaluate the profits Apollo and other firms reaped within the deals and whether or not they harmed patients and clinicians. Apollo has said it’s cooperating with the inquiries.
Although Lifepoint runs Memorial, the ability and the land it sits on are owned by the town of Las Cruces and Doña Ana County. Denying care to patients could violate the 40-year lease Memorial struck with the county and the town in 2004. The lease says the ability must generally proceed providing care to “those unable to pay the complete cost of healthcare services rendered to them.”
About 225,000 people live in Doña Ana County, the urban and rural region Memorial serves, and almost 15% don’t have any medical health insurance, recent census figures show. About 23% of county residents live in poverty, compared with 11.5% nationwide.
One focus of the state investigation, Torrez said, is whether or not Memorial misrepresented its health care services for needy patients. The hospital’s most up-to-date annual report back to the community said: “Delivering care to all of our neighbors, no matter their ability to pay, is foundational to our mission and our commitment to our community.”
Torrez can also be investigating whether Memorial violated a Latest Mexico law governing financial assistance programs for patients. The Patients Debt Collection Protection Act requires hospitals to screen for financial assistance, he said, adding that “patients who’re turned away without screening would constitute a violation of the law.” Among the patients NBC News interviewed for the June report described being denied care without being screened to find out whether or not they could use financial assistance.
Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, N.M.
Paul Ratje for NBC News
Before 2004, Memorial operated as a community nonprofit hospital. Under Lifepoint, Memorial is a for-profit entity and highly profitable. It charged 6.7 times its costs for care in 2021, in line with probably the most recent figures available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. The common charged amongst for-profit hospitals nationwide is lower than five times their costs, in line with Ge Bai, professor of health policy and management on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who relies in Washington, D.C.
The CMS hospital comparison site confirms that Memorial’s Medicare costs per beneficiary are each higher than the national average and almost 20% higher than the state average.
Yolanda Diaz is a patient advocate at CARE Las Cruces, a nonprofit organization she founded that helps needy patients pay for health care and expenses. Diaz has been notifying county and city officials since 2021 that Memorial was turning away patients, a practice she said she found inhumane and unjust.
“I used to be upset that nobody in Las Cruces and Doña Ana County leadership progressed to take needed motion, but I had hope,” Diaz said in an email. “I feel the Latest Mexico Department of Justice launching an official investigation is the very best motion course and I hope for disclosures to the general public, needed change and justice.”
Hospital documents produced under open records requests show that Memorial’s written indigent care policy for years directed it to provide care to patients who were unable to pay the complete costs of their treatments and discussed discounts or cost-sharing arrangements for individuals who met income criteria. That modified last 12 months, five years after Apollo, the private-equity giant co-founded by Leon Black, bought Lifepoint, the records show.
Private-equity firms like Apollo have taken over much of the health care industry lately. The firms typically load debt onto the businesses they buy, then cut costs to extend earnings and appeal to potential buyers later. Almost one-quarter of Latest Mexico’s hospitals are controlled by private-equity firms, in line with a study by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit operation that analyzes the private-equity industry’s impact on consumers.
The American Investment Council, the private-equity lobbying group, says the industry improves health care. But independent academic studies show private-equity firms’ involvement within the industry leads to significant cost increases for patients and payers, comparable to Medicare. Lower quality of care has been related to the firms’ investments in health care, research shows, including 10% higher mortality rates at nursing homes owned by private equity and more incidents of infections, blood clots and falls at hospitals.
