A vendor serving an Iowa nursing home is accusing the owner of fraud in a case involving unpaid bills of more than $344,000. But first, the vendor has to figure out who the actual owner is.
Touchstone and Indian Hills have debts totaling nearly $1 million of unpaid debts to several vendors, according to news reports.
Healthcare Services Group filed a federal lawsuit Sept. 6 intended to find out the identity of individuals who run Indian Hills Healthcare, owner of Touchstone Healthcare Community, a now-defunct nursing home in Sioux City, IA.
The difficulty identifying individuals is due to Indian Hills being an Limited Liability Company, started by one man, that is now owned by a revocable trust belonging to another man, who has died. Revocable trusts are not a part of the public record.
HSG needs owners’ names to file a federal civil lawsuit, in which it plans to allege that Indian Hills has deliberately defrauded vendors. Several vendors besides HSG have taken Indian Hills to court over the past few years to recoup money owed them.
“Indian Hills’ intent to defraud its creditors is evidenced by the depth and breadth of its defaults,” HSG alleges, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch. “Indeed, Indian Hills defaulted under its obligations with numerous creditors for services that were dutifully performed over many months.”
Touchstone was on the Special Focus Facilities list for four years before it closed its doors earlier this summer. In an emergency ruling, a federal court found that conditions at the home posed an imminent danger to residents. DIA, the agency that oversees the state’s nursing homes, cited the home for 10 deficiencies and later asked a court to put the home in receivership 10 days after the home’s owners told DIA it couldn’t make payroll.
