Metrocare Services is Dallas County’s largest mental health services provider, and it’s spent the last year-plus in a sort of financial meltdown. D CEO’s Shawn Shinneman, the editor of our healthcare vertical, has a pretty alarming report that I’d like to direct you to. Metrocare, which is a government agency that serves somewhere around 57,000 patients all over the county, had so little money last year that it ran out of its prescription stock and had to refer patients to other providers.
Here’s Shawn:
With a budget north of $100 million and a business model in which 20 percent of revenue comes in once-a-year chunks, its CEO, Dr. John Burruss says, Metrocare has to ensure year-long stability either through cash reserves or loans. With the cash long gone, Metrocare had lined up a $22 million loan for 2017. But then the bank pulled the financing a week after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Under the new administration, Burruss was told a Medicaid-reliant agency was no longer considered an appealing borrower, he says.
Without the financing, 2017 became a challenge. While Burruss says the organization has turned a corner in 2018, it currently finds itself off-budget for the fiscal year.
Since last May, Metrocare has lost two high-ranking executives; the most recent being Chief Financial Officer Kyle Munson, who split after 15 years with the agency. The other was a higher-up in HR. There’s an anonymous letter floating around to local media and government types alleging mismanagement of its financial presentations as well as an internal software team. Plus it’s facing a “cybersecurity breach” and a “dramatic rise in medical claims expenses.”
You can find his whole piece right here.
