Rural Tennessee Clinic Struggles asTennCare Freezes Payments

Rural Tennessee Clinic Struggles asTennCare Freezes Payments

SPEEDWELL, Tenn.

— In March, Servolution Health Services threw a party to celebrate its opening as a rural health clinic in Speedwell,Tenn., a small Appalachian town near the Kentucky border with 5,000 children and no pediatrician.

The new clinic, nestled between a cornfield and a dairy farm, brought on a pediatrician. It hired nurse practitioners to provide primary care to adults, too.

In a county with one-fifth of the population living below the poverty level and high rates of diabetes and hypertension, the clinic is a significant addition.

But the celebration was short-lived.

The clinic is now struggling to stay afloat, caught in a prolonged bureaucratic tangle created by officials with the state’s TennCare program.

Extra TennCare payments promised to Servolution — and about 20 other rural health clinics that have opened within the past 15 months — have been frozen while the state works out new payment rules.

TennCare has suspended certain payments to any new rural health clinic while it comes up with new payment rules.

Alicia Metcalf, co-CEO of the Speedwell clinic, said she didn’t learn about the frozen payments until months after the state approved her application and the clinic began seeing TennCare patients.

“It’s been a big shock to us,” said Metcalf, who stressed that the clinic would remain open despite TennCare’s payment freeze. “It’s harder and harder to keep open the doors with no money coming in.”

National and state health care organizations, including the Tennessee Hospital Association, have asked the state to immediately end its moratorium on payments.

In letters and in person at a November meeting, they told TennCare officials many clinics are in imminent danger of closing — compounding an already acute crisis in rural Tennessee where many hospitals have shut down.

Sarah Tanksley, a Tenn-Care spokeswoman, said the state’s moratorium is necessary to create new rules for the complicated billing procedures required of all of the state’s approximately 150 rural health clinics.

Missing Former Pro

Baseball Player Found

Safe

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – An 88-year-old former baseball player and Memphis teacher who was missing for a week was located and is safe, police said Tuesday.

Lonnie Harris was last seen around noon Dec. 17 in the 500 block of Lodestone Way in southwest Memphis.

Police said he was headed downtown, but hadn’t been seen or heard from since. They also said Harris suffers from a mental disorder.

Harris, who was the subject of a profile story by former Times Sports Editor Collins Peeples back in June, had been contacted by Memphis Police twice back in October as friends tried to help him after he fell on hard times and was evicted from his apartment.

In the 1950s, Harris was known as “Showboat” while playing baseball with the Memphis Red Sox and other Negro league teams. He was a veteran and later became a teacher at Humes Junior High.

There ws no word on Harris’s current living situation or what the circumstances were surrounding his disappearance.

State Police Investigating Christmas Day Homicide

HAMBURG – Police are investigating an overnight homicide in Ashley County.

Hamburg police were called shortly before 2 a.m. to the 400 block of Chicago Street where they found a vehicle had collided into the side of a home.

Authorities say 33-year-old Todd A. Martin, of Crossett, was found dead at the scene.

Police say earlier that night, Martin visited his family members. He parked his car across the street and walked to their home.

After leaving their home, Martin was shot while driving away in his vehicle, according to police.

Authorities say his vehicle continued to roll across the street hitting the side of the home where he had earlier visited relatives.

Martin’s body was taken to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory.

Police say this is an ongoing investigation, and no arrests have been made.

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Mississippi Law Firm Accused in Ponzi Scheme

JACKSON, Miss. – An attorney trying to recover money from a $100 million Ponzi scheme in Mississippi says a law firm should have known about the scheme.

News outlets reported a federal complaint by court-appointed receiver Alysson Mills says the law firm and others contributed to the facade that made the scheme look legitimate.

The complaint says Butler Snow and the founder and president of Butler Snow Advisories Services LLC, Matt Thornton, as well as Brent Alexander and Jon Seawright of the law firm Baker Donelson, helped Madison Timber.

Madison Timber operated a Ponzi scheme that claimed to buy timber from Mississippi landowners and resell it to Mississippi lumber mills at higher prices.

Snow and the attorney representing Alexander and Seawright dispute the accusations and say they have cooperated in the investigation.

Cold Snap Headed to Mid-South

After relatively warm temperatures over the Christmas holidays, Mid-South residents should be prepared to bundle up for the new year. Temperatures are exptected to be at or below seasonal norms next week as a cold front pushes across the region after a wet weekend forecast, with highs in the 40s and lows near the freezing mark for several days.