By John Howell Sr.
An attorney for Tri-Lakes Medical Center has objected to a request from The Panolian for release of a hospital audit report.

The newspaper seeks an audit report prepared by Joseph Decosimo and Company, an accounting firm hired by Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group, doing business as Tri-Lakes Medical Center. The audit was ordered by Judge David Houston of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for Mississippi’s Northern District. Tri-Lakes filed for chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy on August 23, 2007.

On January 30, Judge Houston, at Tri-Lakes’ request, ordered the report sealed.

“We’ve taken what is for us an unprecedented step in seeking a legal remedy to obtain information that we believe belongs to our readers,” The Panolian managing editor Rupert Howell said. “We’re disappointed that the hospital’s attorney is trying to keep that information hidden from view.”

The Panolian and the North Mississippi Herald, through attorney Joe Pegram of Oxford, on February 28 filed a motion to release the report. Tri-Lakes/Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group attorney Craig Geno filed his objection March 11. Tri-Lakes hired the Ridgeland firm of Harris, Jernigan and Geno, PLLC last September.

The motion to release states the recent history of Tri-Lakes Medical Center, from a referendum in 2004 in which voters in the South Panola Community Hospital District overwhelmingly approved the sale by the city and county to the highest and best bidder.

“The Panola County Supervisors and Batesville Board of Aldermen, in a very controversial decision, selected in 2005 the buyer under whose administration the hospital has found itself involved in bankruptcy,” The Panolian’s motion states.

“Many of the citizens of the community ... have been patients of that hospital and have had various financial dealings with the hospital,” the motion continues. “Further, many of them voted ... and are interested in their community’s hospital and the future of health care in Panola County. Therefore The Panolian and the North Mississippi Herald state that it would be in the best interest of the public which has a vested interest in the continued existence of Tri-Lakes ... to know and have the opportunity to analyze the Report. ...”

The newspapers “feel that it is their responsibility to report as much information as possible which is of such a public interest to their readers as soon as possible,” the motion to release states.

Geno states in his objection that “the report ... contains incomplete information that would serve no purpose to be released to the general public,” and that it contains “proprietary and privileged information ... that is protected from disclosure.”

“Until the report is complete, or until the report can be edited ... it should not be released ... “ Geno’s objection to The Panolian’s motion to release states.

Other entities which have sought a release of the Decosimo report include PHNS, a hospital records and billing management firm that briefly located in Batesville last year; Batesville Hospital Management, Inc., a corporation owned by Dr. Robert S. Corkern, and the Mississippi State Tax Commission.

On Feb. 12, Judge Houston ordered that a copy of the report be made available to the hospital’s board of directors — Dr. Robert Gray, Dr. David Ball, George Randolph and Raymond Belk.