Burns had been a partner in a Florida firm, Frontier Hospitals, that had a contract managing South Cameron Memorial Hospital in Cameron, La., in 2013, according to the Star.

Calcasieu Parish, La., authorities brought charges in 2015 in a pending case alleging felony theft, forgery and monetary instrument abuse at that institution.


“The board did not do background checks; they went through almost no process before signing the management contract with Mr. Byrns and his management company,” Galloway told the paper.

Joe Bednar, a lawyer representing the hospital, plans to review the claim.

“The client is confident they haven’t broken any laws,” he told The Star. “They told me they [the allegations] were erroneous, they told me it was not true, they told me they were in compliance with the law.”

Hospital Partners released a statement, reported in the Kirksville Daily Express, that defended its actions after the auditor claims, stating in part that, “as a rural hospital/critical access hospital, Putnam County Memorial Hospital is authorized by law to assign and bill for clinical laboratory testing provided at a reference lab. The ‘non-patient’ clinical lab testing is an essential part of providing local revenue for the hospital to offset financial losses rural/critical access hospitals typically incur. These are not new laws, but instead have been in place for decades.”

The statement added that, “the gross mischaracterization of this standard practice by the state auditor’s office has led to inaccurate conclusions and potential limitations of access for the local patients being served by the hospital.”

Galloway, however, remained adamant, noting that “the decisions made by hospital management and the board are astounding in their irresponsibility and have the potential to negatively impact the hospital and the residents of Putnam County for years to come.”

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