MI - 10 25 09_Candidate Christie Muhlenberg Hospital Community

Muhlenberg Foundation Inc.

Review of 12/31/2008 & 12/31/2007 Forms 990

In 2007, the Muhlenberg Foundation made payments to the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center of $5,571,490, which included the transfer of stock of the Midtown Shops Corporation, a firm that has extensive holdings of commercial real estate. The Muhlenberg Foundation received the Midtown Shops stock as a pledge from the Harold B. & Dorothy A. Snyder Foundation in 2007 and valued it on their books at $4,712,976, which included $208,570 in cash. Prior to the stock being controlled by the Muhlenberg Foundation, the Snyder Foundation received a yearly dividend of $109,000 from the Midtown Shops Corporation. The transfer resulted in 30.4 percent of the net assets of the Muhlenberg Foundation being transferred to the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center. The purpose of this transaction needs to be questioned. Was it done in good faith? Why was Midtown Shops stock transferred from the Muhlenberg Foundation to the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center within months after the Foundation received the total pledge, which was settled over a period of three years. We question how the income from the Midtown Shops is reflected on the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center Return for the years ending December 31, 2007 and December 31, 2008.

The closing of the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center (MRMC) acute care hospital by Solaris Health Systems in August of 2008 violated the original Articles of Incorporation, which clearly states that the sole purpose of the organization is “to provide a hospital for the residents of Plainfield, New Jersey.” The Muhlenberg Foundation was formed to operate exclusively for the benefit of the Muhlenberg Hospital and was the principal fundraising arm of the hospital. Thus, the closing of the hospital left the Muhlenberg Foundation without a hospital to support in Plainfield, New Jersey. The statement of Program Service Accomplishments on the Muhlenberg Foundation Form 990 for 2008 now states the Foundation is “to engage in programs and activities for the benefit of Solaris Health Systems.” This is a drastic change from the purpose as stated in the Foundation’s Articles of Incorporation. The change was made prior to a New Jersey Appellate Court hearing challenging the closing of the Muhlenberg Regional hospital.

The Attorney General under Governor Jon Corzine failed to protect the interests of the Muhlenberg Foundation and the 13 communities serviced by the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center when it stood silent and allowed the Muhlenberg Hospital to close. The closing of the hospital terminated the purpose of the Foundation. Did Solaris Health Systems, the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center, or the Muhlenberg Foundation notify the Attorney General or the Surrogate Court of the hospital’s closing or seek direction as to the disposition of its assets? The net assets of the Muhlenberg Hospital were reduced by 1,026%!! Net assets in the beginning of 2008 were $5,238,417 and at the end of the year they were (-$53,788,837). The $55,808,594 loss from discontinued operations was charged against unrestricted net assets and needs to be verified by a complete audit of the return. (The discontinued operations loss was primarily the acute care hospital income and operating expenses for the period January 1, 2008 through August 2008). However, included in net assets of the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center was $1,875,325 in perpetual trusts. The health services rendered at the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center have been reduced to a bare minimum, which resulted in the constructive closure of the hospital facility. The remaining health services are:
a. Home Health Care (Per 2008 Form 990 for MRMC, Home Health Care receives 45% of the revenue from non-acute care hospital sources of income)
b. School of Radiology
c. A small satellite Emergency Room that will close in 3.5 years
d. minimal outpatient services
e. A limited X-ray department that does CAT scans twice a week.

As of December 31, 2008, the net assets of the Muhlenberg Foundation were $7,597,236. This includes $2,950,583 in investments in publically traded securities and $1,767,663 in beneficial interest in perpetual trust. Included in this total was $1,640,356 in assets described on the Balance Sheet as “Assets whose use is Limited”? A specific analysis needs to be completed in order to determine the nature and purpose of assets classified as “Assets whose use is Limited”.

Other Issues requiring resolution by independent review of the Forms 990 for the years ending 12/31/2007 and 12/31/2008 are as follows
:
1. Why did the Investment Income on Form 990 of the Muhlenberg Foundation decrease from $330,625 in 2007 to $4,563 in 2008?
2. Why did the investments in publicly traded securities on Form 990 of the Muhlenberg Foundation decline from $5,803,443 in 2007 to $2,950,583 in 2008?
3. Determine reason(s) for the large decrease in net assets of the Muhlenberg Foundation from $9,760,931 in 2007 to $7,597,236 in 2008.
4. Form 990 - Part 5, question 6a - Did the organization solicit any contributions that were not tax deductible? The “yes” box was checked. From whom and for what reasons were these contributions solicited?
5. Form 990 - Part 5, question 7a – Did the organization provide goods or services in exchange for any quid pro quo contribution on more than $75.00? The “yes” box was checked. What were the goods and services provided and why was it considered a quid pro quo transaction?
6. Form 990 - Part 6, Section A, question 7a – Does the organization have members, stockholders, or other persons who may elect one or more members of the governing body? The “yes” box was checked. The Foundation was established to support a hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey, which is located in Union County. If the control of the governing body is transferred outside of Plainfield and Union County, the community may have been harmed by decisions from a Board of Directors without ties to Plainfield, New Jersey or Union County.
7. Form 990 - Part 6, Section A, question 7b – Are any decisions of the governing body subject to approval by members, stockholders or other persons? The “yes” box was checked. The issue in item 7b is the same as in item 7a; were the decisions by the Board of Directors compromised by persons not living and associated with the Plainfield community and Union County?
8. Why were $229,892 (2007) and $74,095 (2008) of net assets released from restrictions for use in operations on the Foundation’s Form 990?
9. What was the $464,370 unrealized gain from investments other than trading securities on the Foundation’s Form 990 for 2008?
10. The issues as reflected in items 6 & 7 above are also present on the 2008 Form 990 of the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center.
11. What systems are in place in order to protect the Muhlenberg Foundation’s Perpetual Trusts of $1,767,633 and the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center’s Perpetual Trusts of $1,875,325? Are the terms of the trust instruments being followed?
12. A review of the Forms 990 of the Plainfield Neighborhood Health Center shows that Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center loaned the PNHC $2,040,000 in 1997. It also indicates that this loan was paid off in 2004; however, was this transaction ever recorded in the Union County, NJ County Clerk's office? If not, why?

It appears that Solaris Health Systems has developed a corporate culture, led by management and acquiesced by the Trustees of the Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center and the Muhlenberg Foundation, Inc., that the delivery of health care is best left exclusively to the sole judgment of management. This resulted in the acute care hospital being closed, assets being liquidated, and tangible personal property, such as beds and medical equipment being transferred to other related Solaris entities prior to the Appellant Court’s decision in a case challenging the Commissioner of Heath and Senior Services’ decision to terminate the Muhlenberg Hospital’s Certificate of Need. It should have been the New Jersey Attorney General’s function to oversee the Muhlenberg institutions and protect its charitable assets. In Connecticut, the Attorney General intervened in a situation involving an acute care hospital facility abandoning its historic core mission as an acute care facility to become an ambulatory care facility with an emergency room. There, the hospital trustees voted to close in-patient care and lay off related medical support staff. The Connecticut Attorney General’s Office contended that such a fundamental transformation required cy pres action, and the court agreed. In New Hampshire the Attorney General is a necessary party in any proceeding involving cy pres, or deviation or termination of charitable trusts. Finally, we need the New Jersey Attorney General to oversee and protect the medical needs of Plainfield, a minority community.

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Study Shows Hospitals Benefit from Mistakes: New York Personal Injury Lawyer Kenneth A. Wilhelm Expresses Concerns

A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) states that hospitals make money from their own mistakes because insurers pay them for the lengthier stays and additional care patients need to treat any complications arising from the surgery. According to the JAMA article dated April 17, the authors of the study found that hospitals profited even as patients suffered from mistakes and post-surgery complications that could have been prevented.

The report states that the hospitals profited because the median length of stay for patients who suffered complications quadrupled to 14 days and hospital revenues shot up from $18,900 per patient to $49,400.

                  

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 14, 2013

 

Hospitals profit from their own mistakes and negligence because they get paid by insurers for longer patient stays and the extra care that is required to treat surgical complications that may have well been prevented. According to an April 17 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study analyzed nine common surgical procedures and 10 major complications across four payer types. Hospital costs and revenue at discharge were obtained from hospital accounting systems and classified by payer type, according to the JAMA report.

The study is based on a detailed analysis of 34,256 patient records involving those who had surgery in the year 2010 at one of 12 hospitals run by Texas Health Resources. Of those 1,820 patients or 5 percent suffered one or more complications that could have been prevented such as blood clots, pneumonia or infected wounds, the study showed. The report states that the hospitals profited because the median length of stay for patients who suffered complications quadrupled to 14 days and hospital revenues shot up from $18,900 per patient to $49,400.

The findings detailed in this study are very disturbing and are cause for serious concern, said New York personal injury lawyer Kenneth A. Wilhelm. "Individuals who receive substandard care from hospitals or doctors have legal rights. Those who have been the victim of medical negligence undergo significant physical, emotional and financial hardships."

Anyone who has been the victim of medical negligence can seek compensation for their injuries, damages and losses from the hospital, doctor and other at-fault parties, Wilhelm said. "Victims of medical negligence can seek compensation for all of their medical expenses, lost wages, hospitalization, permanent injuries, disabilities and the pain and suffering caused by their injuries. Doctors and hospitals have a duty of care to provide a reasonable quality of care to their patients."
About the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm

The Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm is a personal injury litigation firm with an unwavering dedication to its clients. With more than 41 years of experience, our firm strives to obtain the best compensation for those who have been injured or those who have lost a loved one due to an accident or by someone else's negligence. We handle cases dealing with personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death, workers' compensation, dental malpractice, motor vehicle accidents, rape, paralysis, comas, seizures, false arrest, lead poisoning, trips and slips and falls, elevator accidents, construction accidents, Erb's palsy, cerebral palsy, brain damage, blindness, hearing loss, dog bite cases, fire and smoke inhalation accidents, bicycle accidents, falls from windows or scaffolds, and many other types of accidents and injuries.

Please contact us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). We can also help with personal injury cases in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been seriously injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
 
Other phone numbers for us are:
1-800-RADIO-LAW, 1-888-WYPADEK, OR 1-800-LAS-LEYES
Please visit us at: http://www.WORK4YOULAW.com
The Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm
445 Park Ave, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10022
(212) 545-7373.

Grade inflation equals consumer fraud

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 20:38

LETTER TO THE EDITOR                                                                       NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Education reform can begin with a policy that prohibits the granting of honor roll grades to students who are not doing work that is on grade level. Grades are deceptive and few parents know what children are expected to know at various stages of their development. Accepted practices of grade inflation need to be banned as a destructive form of consumer fraud.

Honor rolls can create a deceptive sense of satisfaction for everyone involved. It would produce a higher level of advocacy and effort from parents and students if they were aware that they were achieving excellence in work below the core content standards for their grade.

In every school system, there are students who will do whatever it takes to master all of the work required of them. It is not fair for them to never be presented the full scope of academic instruction that is given to other students that they will have to compete with in college. Valedictorians from one school district are placed at a disadvantage next to "C" students from another.

Many college freshmen are surprised and discouraged to learn that they have to take loans and acquire debt for non-credit courses. This often includes the additional cost of room and board for instruction they should have obtained while living at home attending public schools where they excelled. Without proper support, many of these gifted students are lost to higher education, forever.

All positive change does not require money. A public policy that requires "truth in grading" can go a long way towards preventing schools from languishing, unchallenged in entrenched failure.

DEBORAH DOWE

PLAINFIELD, N.J.

 

Comments (10)

Lived It

10 Thursday, 08 April 2010 08:04

Renata Hernandez

What a compelling piece and the commentary equally so! As a product of PPS and an honor roll student since the 6th grade I lived the angst of going to college only to be faced with remediated NON-DEGREE contributing mandatory coursework in English and MATH! It was depressing but by grace I pressed forward and continued on until I achieved my MBA. TODAY I continue to advocate for the PARENTS and Children of this district. As the former President of Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) and now as a BOE Candidate -- It is my DUTY as a citizen and as a human being to change the course of our current educational system!

Grade inflation equals student failures

9 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 22:20

N. Webb

Having a child that came out of a public school and is now struggling to get a passing grade in math in a private school this hits home. Deborah is on point. If my daughter could not do the required work a poor grade would have alerted us sooner. It’s much easier to get the extra help the children need in the lower grades than later when it may be too late.

Grade inflation equals consumer fraud

8 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 14:29

Rev. Alphonso and Carol Washington

Some years ago, my brother retired from teaching in the MD school system because they had begun the process of 'dumbing down' the Math department of which he was head. It truly upset him because the students would be the ones to suffer in the end. You see, ironically, grade inflation is ultimately a disservice to students. In the real world, where people have to work hard, pay taxes and learn that life has a habit of throwing nasty surprises at you, an ability to think critically is worth a lot more than a piece of paper showing you got lots of As and Bs in the Leaving Cert. Without the capacity for independent thought, today’s students will flounder in the future and this will only be exacerbated by the false sense of entitlement they have from being handed a raft of ill-deserved high grades.

It will be sorely disappointing for them to discover that, as adults, things won’t always be handed to them on a plate. They will fail sometimes. Life won’t always go their way and no one will ever ask them how they got on in the Leaving Cert.

Quoting from an article I read a couple years ago..."Grade inflation has wider implications too. Without high standards in education, how will the bottle-fed brats of the Bebo generation develop intellectually to the point where they might contribute to technological advancement, make scientific breakthroughs or add to the canon of Irish literature?

More prosaically, can we trust those with diluted qualifications to do their jobs properly? If a patient dies because of a doctor’s misdiagnosis or a bridge falls down because an engineer made a basic mistake with a set-square, will we be able to trace those disasters back to the awarding of inflated grades when they were leaving school?

These are questions I was hoping to answer with the aid of a statistical model of my own devising, but the strange thing is, my mathematical abilities just don’t seem to be up to it. And I thought I was an A-grade student."

Deborah Dowe, you are spot on!

Empower the Parents

7 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 12:51

Norman Dowe

Most of the attention given to improving academic performance has focused on the schools. Teachers and administrators are increasingly being held accountable for student performance. However, they are only one third of the educational triumvirate that also includes the parents and students. Grade inflation disempowers the parents. This is especially true for those who are at the lower end of the educational ladder themselves.

Poorly educated parents, who do not know what their child should be learning, are disempowered as advocates for their children by grade inflation. They are lulled into a false belief that their children are doing well and on the route to a better future than they have had. After all their children are doing so well academically. They don't push their children to do better. They don't challenge the teachers to do better. They don't challenge the administration to do better. They believe that everything is OK when in truth it is not. Their interests and the interests of their children are not served at all. Only the interests of the under performing educators and school systems are served. These people don't have to weather the cacophony of complaints that face bad educators in districts where parents know what should be taught.

If you want to invest in a business the SEC makes public companies tell the truth in their form 10-k's and other filings. If you want to buy a franchise the Federal Trade Commission makes franchisers tell the truth in their franchise disclosure documents. Don't parents deserve the same kind of protection from the educational establishment? Should they not be required to tell the truth about how students are actually performing?

Grade Inflation

6 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 10:10

G Daniels

Deborah, I believe your comment is very accurate and necessary.

There are none more formidable to personal and societal destruction than those who care more for your comfort than your character and knowledge.

Grade Inflation

5 Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:40

Hope T.

Finally...this is spot on. I believe there is not only grade inflation, but grade manipulation. And it only hurts the students. Imagine how they feel when they get to college and out in the real world and find that they are unable to compete. It's a vicious and criminal cycle destroying society's future!

Truth In Grading

4 Monday, 05 April 2010 21:58

Nini J.

Deborah has a very strong and valid point.. a vile dis-service to our "future".. Our children in "our" classrooms.. taking it a step futher can you imagine the devastaion that must cause to the students personally; once they realize they cannot compete properly in the next phase of their lives?
Wow.. Thanks for bringing this to our attention..

Grading

3 Monday, 05 April 2010 20:28

Michelle Cox

Agreed, there should be more truth in grading. School districts should understand that an ill prepared high school student might be more likely to be a college drop out. Spending money on remedial classes is damaging to the wallet and a students self esteem.

GPA v SAT Scores

2 Monday, 05 April 2010 17:42

Roger Stryeski

I'm always amazed at the Honor Rolls that newspapers put out. They have the leading student from each, usually public schools. Then, I find the disparity between the GPA and their SAT score. I have seen 4.0's with under 1000 for the SAT.

"thruth in grading"

1 Sunday, 04 April 2010 11:55

A. Robert "Bob" Johnson

Deborah is "right on the money". Having taught at Hubbard JHS with her dad and retired from teaching math at Kean U. in 2002, I have seen "it all". It's not just the Plainfields that submit to grade inflation and subject their graduates to retaking essential courses, at their own expense. I Found many students from the "priviliged" districts had failed their placement tests in college algebra. For several years I taught what turned out to be a remedial course for area college students from Princeton, Brown, Wagner, Rutgers, etc., who had great grades from Westfield,Cranford, etc. Why? Grade inflation and teaching for the test are the likely answers.
The nation must do better for our children and grandchildren.
Thank you Debbie!
Bob Johnson

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Diverse and Disenfranchised

How do we categorize the disenfranchised?  Which lives matter less?  We need new language and new conversations.

Solidarity

If communities are losing healthcare services, there needs to be the right to chose trauma care as the priority.

If the researchers of The Muhlenberg Independents can assist in any way, please let me know.

Deborah Dowe
DNV.Dowe@verizon.net

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