We have developed a broad range of experience in the healthcare industry, including pioneering the concept of protecting financially troubled, acute-care community hospitals through the Rhode Island Superior Court Special Mastership process. Mark Russo was appointed Special Master of the Westerly Hospital and its various related entities where his team successfully operated and sold the hospital. The Westerly Hospital process was awarded the Healthcare/Life Sciences Deal-of-the-Year in 2014 by M&A Advisor Magazine.
At Ferrucci Russo Dorsey, we have represented both buyers and sellers in change-in-effective-control and Hospital Conversions Act proceedings. We have been integrally involved in the purchase and sale of three acute-care, community hospitals, two nursing homes, physician practices, and a healthcare clinic. We have negotiated settlements with the Office of Inspector General on issues relating to hospital/physician contracts and overseen efforts to improve hospital revenue cycles. We have restructured group-purchasing programs for hospitals, various vendor relationships and material contracts for hospital operations. We have designed and negotiated tax stabilization/exemption ordinances for healthcare organizations. We have represented labor in preventing hospital reorganizations. We have designed and implemented strategies in contested certificate of need proceedings.
We worked with labor to prevent the complete restructuring of Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket; we represented the State’s only bone marrow transplant facility in contested administrative proceedings to protect that facility from fragmentation; and we secured licensure for a school of nursing with for-profit ownership.
Our attorneys have appeared before the Rhode Island’s Department of the Attorney General, Department of Health, Health Services Council, and Board of Pharmacy on diverse healthcare matters.
- Joseph Ferrucci, a pioneer attorney on the Rhode Island Superior Court Business Calendar, designed and implementing the first acute-care, community hospital mastership, which has resulted in the preservation of the Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
- We restructured and operated The Westerly Hospital while negotiating and completing a $69 million sale of that asset – in less than 18 months -- to Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, who committed to maintain the Westerly Hospital as an acute-care, community hospital and to preserve jobs. At closing, all secured creditors were paid in full and, within six months of the closing, over $10 million in unsecured creditor claims were satisfied. All unsecured claims recommended for payment by the Mastership have been satisfied. We secured insurance coverage for the employees’ pension plan and injected another quarter of a million dollars towards retirement benefits, separate and apart from the insurance. Currently, the Mastership holds the $1 million reserve fund with the hopes that this will be used to advance the charitable mission of non-profit healthcare in Southern Rhode Island.
- In the first joint venture between a for-profit and non-profit healthcare network to receive approval in the state (outside of a Court-supervised insolvency proceeding), Ferrucci Russo was counsel to Prospect Medical Holdings of Los Angeles, CA, in its quest to own and operate all of the healthcare entities associated with CharterCare Health Partners. These facilities included two acute-care, community hospitals previously operated as Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima, as well as extended care facilities Elmhurst Extended Care and the St. Joseph Health Center. After securing regulatory approvals from the RI Department of Health and Department of Attorney General, the joint venture invested over $100 million in the healthcare network.
- We negotiated and structured the purchase and sale of the Southern New England Regional Cancer Center from the Landmark Medical Center Mastership.
- Through a receivership proceeding in the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island, we operated and sold a 158-bed nursing home facility in Woonsocket for over $5 million; the former Mount Saint Francis Health Center is now operating under new ownership of Trinity Health and Rehabilitation Center.
