JAMESTOWN, Tenn. — UPDATE (6/19/19):
State Rep. John Mark Windle has requested an audit from the state Department of Labor into Rennova Jamestown after employees said they cannot collect unemployment because the company wasn’t sending unemployment insurance payments to the state, Windle told 10News Wednesday.
The Tennessee Dept. of Labor issued the following statement Wednesday afternoon:
"Senior staff with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development is currently working with Rennova, the owners of Jamestown Regional Medical Center, to ensure former employees are able to file for unemployment insurance benefits.
Today, the Department continues to work with its local workforce partner in Fentress County, along with the Fentress County mayor, to organize the deployment of a Rapid Response Team to Jamestown. The event is tentatively set up for Friday, June 21. The group has yet to determine a time and location for the event.
The Rapid Response Team works with dislocated workers to revise resumes, inform them of training opportunities, and to help the workers with job searches. All these services are free of charge and open to anyone needing assistance."
Last week, the Jamestown Regional Medical Center had a sign posted on its door stating the hospital would be temporarily closed starting June 13 at 7 p.m. The sign claimed the public would be given notice when it reopened.
The closure came just one day after the hospital stopped receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments for new patients.
This is a developing story. 10News will update this article as more information becomes available.
ORIGINAL STORY (6/14/19):
The Jamestown Regional Medical Center had a sign posted on its door on June 14 stating the hospital would be temporarily closed starting June 13 at 7 p.m.
The sign on the Fentress County hospital said "No patients will be seen during this time of closure" and that the public would be given notice when it reopened.
It was posted at the ambulance entrance of the hospital.
The closure came just one day after the hospital stopped receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments for new patients.
The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final termination notice to Jamestown Regional Medical Center on Tuesday, May 28, based on the hospital’s failure to maintain compliance with the Conditions of Participation (COP) established by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a CMS spokesperson said.
The termination was effective June 12, which means Medicare will not make payments for services given to patients who are admitted on or after that date, according to CMS.
RELATED: 'People will die' | Closing fears rise as Medicare, Tenncare pull out of Jamestown hospital
The hospital's CEO confirmed that that loss of funding as well as supply issues triggered the temporary closing in a statement on behalf of the hospital given to the Fentress County mayor's office.
"Please be aware that effective at 7:00 p.m. on June 13, 2019, due to the loss of participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and related supply issues, Jamestown Regional Medical Center will be temporary [sic] closing. We expect to resolve the related issues and to resume operations in the near future. We will release an announcement of the date that we plan to resume services."
10News spoke to CEO Michael Alexander at the hospital on Friday.
"We don’t expect it to be long term, we expect it could be fairly brief, I don’t have a good feel yet as to exact number of days, weeks that may be involved, but we are working hard to make it as quick as possible," Alexander said.
Alexander was hired on Monday.
"They did their best to describe what I was walking in to, and they asked me several times, are you sure," Alexander said. "I've been places before where I've walked in to challenges, and this may edge it out. I've been in places before where we've had success in bringing hospitals kind of back from the edge."
He says they must re-apply with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, and to do that they first have to make sure the hospital is in a good state and has supplies.
Then it will have to start accepting some patients so the Medicare office can conduct surveys for approval.
"Part of us not getting paid by Medicare and Medicaid means there’s not money to pay staff," Alexander said.
He’s asking for the community to give him a chance.
"It’s going to be a rebuilding process, and it’s going to take developing trust one patient at a time, and that’s what we’re committed to do," Alexander said.
The hospital's parent company, Florida-based Rennova, had previously said approximately 20 people were laid off on Monday, but that it still employed 120 people from the local area at the hospital.
A previous 10News investigation revealed Rennova faces an IRS lean on nearly half a million dollars in unpaid federal taxes on the Jamestown facility.
This is a developing story. 10News will continue to update it as we receive more information.