The Tennessee Attorney General's office said Wednesday it is looking into concerns about an East Tennessee hospital chain. It comes as multiple employees file wage complaints against the Jellico Community Hospital owned by Rennova.
On Saturday, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn sent another letter to the Rennova CEO expressing concerns with the hospital.
"Employees and patients deserve to know if the hospital they go to today is capable, competent and adequately resourced to provide the health care services needed and that it will be open tomorrow," she wrote, copying the attorney general and federal inspectors general on the letter.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Wednesday it received multiple complaints against the Jellico hospital on Tuesday.
"As long as Jellico Medical Center/Rennova Health continues to operate in the state of Tennessee, the Labor Standards Unit will process all valid wage claims against the company," a spokesperson said.
Details of the complaints are not available until the investigation is completed, he added.
Rennova's other open hospital, the Big South Fork Medical Center in Oneida, owed more than $2.3 million in federal payroll taxes and an undisclosed amount of state unemployment insurance, documents provided to 10News by Blackburn show.
Blackburn draws a comparison between these financial issues and similar problems Rennova's Jamestown Regional Medical Center faced before it closed.
Employees in Jamestown told 10News in June that taxes taken out of their paychecks never got to the IRS. Instead of getting a tax refund, some employees got a letter from the federal government saying there's a problem.