Dr. Henry Harbin -
New Freedom Initiative Commission
WH: Dr. Henry Troutman Harbin is the Chairman and CEO of Magellan Health
Services in Columbia, Maryland...
David, SCI,
Magellan owned Charter Behavioral until its [final] liquidation on Oct. 4, 2000.
Magellan's principal owner is Richard E. Rainwater, a personal friend of Bush,
(who invested his own money in the Charter Hospitals.) To simplify the business
relationship referred to in the following articles, Crescent owned the real
estate, (buildings and land), and Magellan owned the franchise, i.e. the right
to use the name "Charter Behavioral". while Rainwater owned BOTH Magellan and
Crescent (and made millions on commissions from selling himself things he
ALREADY OWNED.) Draw your own conclusions about Troutman's association with the
company.
Three articles and a brief quote follow.
Martin
Hartford Courant
Thursday, October 15, 1998
Page:A1
OUT OF TRAGEDY, A CRUSADE FIGHTING IN THE NAME OF THEIR SON
Gagging the mouths of patients was standard procedure during restraints at the
Charter Greensboro psychiatric hospital.
This ``homegrown'' practice, which was included in no training manual, led to
the death last March of 16-year-old Tristan Sovern. He suffocated after being
restrained face-down by seven staffers who wrapped a towel and a bed sheet
around his head to prevent him from biting or spitting.
``I cannot understand how, when they heard my son screaming that he couldn't
breathe and that they were choking him, not one of those people said, `Stop,' ''
said Jean Allen, Sovern's adoptive mother.
Jean Allen and her husband, Richard, who have six other children, including four
adopted ones with special needs, are fighting for Sovern now just as strongly as
they did when he was alive.
They plan to draft and lobby for national standards that would become known as
``Tristan's Law.'' The legislation would require mental health aides to be
licensed and would ensure minimum qualifications and training. It would also
require criminal background checks of all prospective mental health aides.
``I don't think as a nation that we should allow people who don't have proper
training, who are not supervised properly, to go and work with those who need
the very best,'' Allen said. A college professor with a doctorate in child
development, Allen once worked in psychiatric hospitals in California.
Although individual states and institutions set individual training levels,
there are no national standards on the proper use of restraint. Only three
states -- California, Colorado and Kansas -- have active licensing laws in place
for mental health aides.
Sovern, who had developmental and emotional problems, had been placed on a
suicide watch at Charter Greensboro, part of the nation's largest chain of
psychiatric facilities.
Acting on a tip from another patient that Sovern might be trying to hurt himself
with a fish hook, seven staffers burst into his room to restrain him.
The aide leading the charge had twice been convicted of assault outside of work,
including an incident in which he tried to run down someone with a car.
He was hired after the first conviction, then kept on staff after the second.
Joel Weiden, a spokesman for the hospital's owner, Charter Behavioral System,
said he did not know why the worker was kept on staff. But the Greensboro
facility no longer uses mouth coverings, he said, ``and I'd be surprised if any
other Charter facilities still use them.''
Weiden blamed mistakes in restraint use on the lack of national standards -- the
same sort of standards Jean Allen is now fighting to ensure.
``There is no national standard, and no direction from government agencies or
any of the trade organizations,'' said Weiden, whose chain of hospitals had
another restraint-related death just three months before.
``So each facility,'' he said, ``has been left to develop its own policies.''
To Allen, that is simply unacceptable.
``People would be up in arms if they found out animals were being treated this
way at the local animal shelter,'' she said. ``We owe no less for our
children.''
Caption: PHOTO 1: CLUTCHING A PICTURE OF HER SON, Jean Allen is comforted by her
husband, Richard Allen, at Tristan Sovern's grave in Liberty, N.C. Sovern, 16,
died last March at the Charter Greensboro psychiatric hospital after being
restrained. The Allens now are working to draft national standards requiring
that mental health aides be licensed, meet certain minimum qualifications and be
subject to criminal background checks. The legislation would be known as
"Tristan's Law.''
PHOTO 2: HIS MOTHER KEEPS AN ALBUM with photos and this award that Sovern won in
school when he was 12.
Memo: Andrew McClain's Death Brings Change
But will a legacy remain?
Page A11
This series DEADLY RESTRAINT is available on The Courant's Web site, including a
national database of restraint-related deaths, a discussion forum and more.
http://courant.ctnow.com/projects/restraint/day1.stm
www.courant.com
THE OBSERVER
Sunday December 17, 2000
Bush cash linked to death hospitals
Ed Vulliamy in New York
America's President-elect, George W. Bush, held an investment in a company that
leased a chain of psychiatric hospitals where patients died and the conditions
were so appalling that many were shut down, The Observer reveals today.
The hospital chain - Charter Behavioral Health Systems - was exposed by a CBS
television documentary last year after the deaths were reported. CBS had filmed
widespread malpractices, acknowledged by government regulators. This led to a
criminal investigation of Charter, which continues.
What was not revealed was the fact that Charter's hospitals were leased to the
company by a property trust, Crescent, in which Bush purchased shares in 1994.
The Charter connection leads to the heart of Bush's business network in Texas.
Crescent was founded by his closest business partner and the man who made him
rich: genius investor and Texas billionaire Richard Rainwater. Rainwater was the
major investor with whom Bush bought into the Texas Rangers baseball team in
1989 during his father's presidency. The investment was the source of Bush's
biggest windfall and his folk hero status in Texas. He sold the baseball stock
for a profit of $14.9 million, and Rainwater became part of the Bush circle.
Bush sold his shares in Crescent at a profit of $114,000 in 1988, after they had
been put into a blind trust following his election to the governorship of Texas
in 1994.
The Charter hospital scandal connects Bush's Crescent investment to the squalid
story of its tenant's hospitals, and focuses attention on policies to which the
Bush administration in Texas has been committed - self-regulation in private
health care, the environment, energy and guns.
There was no reason why, or suggestion that, either Bush or Rainwater knew what
was happening inside Charter's hospitals. Charter filed for bankruptcy earlier
this year.
During the election hiatus, Bush's Vice-President-elect, Dick Cheney, committed
the upcoming administration to forging ahead with its proposals for reducing
government's role in health care.
Rainwater's office referred The Observer's calls to Crescent, where a
spokeswoman, Sandra Porter, said Charter was a tenant and separate from the
property company, as was Crescent Operating.
Crescent was 'not calling the shots' in Charter hospitals, but acting only as
landlord. Crescent, she said, 'works in partnership with people that we believe
to be experts in what they are doing'.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
New York Times, October 30, 1999, National Desk, BARRY MEIER
"One issue was whether Governor Bush's proposal to privatize state psychiatric
hospitals could benefit Magellan Health Services Inc., a company in which Mr.
Rainwater is the largest shareholder. Had the plan gone forward, which it did
not, Magellan Health would have been a prime contender for such a contract."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 17, 2000, Thursday
Business/Financial Desk
A Chapter 11 Filing by Charter Behavioral
By BARRY MEIER
Charter Behavioral Health Systems, the nation's biggest operator of psychiatric
hospitals and treatment centers which has gone into a financial free fall, filed
for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors yesterday.
Charter, which is 90 percent owned by Crescent Operating Inc., a company led by
Richard E. Rainwater, the financier from Fort Worth, said it made the filing to
''ensure continued services to patients'' in its units.
Charter listed less than $50 million in assets and more than $100 million in
debts in filings yesterday at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington,
Del.
The Crescent Real Estate Equities Company, a real estate investment trust also
led by Mr. Rainwater, already owns the buildings used by Charter's hospitals and
treatment centers.
Three years ago, Charter ran roughly 90 psychiatric hospitals and treatment
centers for more than 8,000 patients, many of them children. Operations have now
dwindled to 37 units with a capacity of 2,000 patients.
Since last year, the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human
Services have been investigating Charter and Magellan Health Services Inc.,
which once owned the chain, for Medicaid billing fraud and patient abuse.
In 1997, Magellan Health entered into a complex $400 million deal in which it
sold Charter's buildings to Crescent Real Estate and a 50 percent stake in the
chain to Crescent Operating, an affiliate of Crescent Real Estate. Because real
estate investment trusts cannot operate companies, Crescent Operating was formed
by Mr. Rainwater and his associates to hold the Charter stake.
The 1997 deal came as the industry faced cutbacks by insurers on treatment
payments. Many former officials of the chain have said that the plan -- which
saddled Charter with some $125 million annually in new franchise fees and
rapidly escalating rents -- contributed to Charter's financial collapse,
undermining patient care in the process.
Officials of Magellan Health, Crescent Operating and Charter Behavioral have
said that the chain's problems were caused by the insurance cutbacks, and that
the 1997 plan did not affect patient care.
Last year, Magellan Health, the nation's largest behavioral health care company,
transferred all but 10 percent of Charter to Crescent Operating.
Yesterday's filing comes a month after Charter said it would close and sell
about 35 hospitals and centers. Former employees at some units have filed
lawsuits contending that Charter violated federal law by failing to give them
sufficient notice of the unit's closings and paying them severance benefits.
Mary E. Olson, a lawyer in Mobile, Ala., representing former Charter employees
in three of those actions, estimated that about 5,000 former workers at the
chain had been affected by the recent closings.
Karen Keiser-Jenkins, a spokeswoman for Charter, which is based in Alpharetta,
Ga., declined to comment on the lawsuits. But in a news release, Charter said it
was ''unable to fully fund all benefits'' to staff members dismissed before
yesterday's filing.
In a release, Crescent Operating said that Mr. Rainwater would guarantee a bank
loan that Crescent Operating plans to use to buy the reorganized company. Mr.
Rainwater would be compensated for that guarantee, the company said. He is the
largest shareholder in both companies and was the biggest stakeholder in
Magellan Health at the time of the 1997 deal.
Last Friday, Jeffrey L. Stevens, an official of Crescent Operating and an
associate of Mr. Rainwater, told Charter executives that the chain had $60
million in debts, according to a former Charter official who was informed about
that meeting.
Ms. Keiser-Jenkins said that she was not aware of the meeting. Mr. Stevens did
not return calls in recent days seeking comment. Under a proposed plan, Crescent
Real Estate would initially lease the 30 Charter facilities it owns to Crescent
Operating for $20.3 million, a 13.3 percent annual return, the company said.
That rate would rise by 5 percent annually.
Crescent Real Estate would also receive the proceeds of any sales of buildings
once used by Charter.
Organizations mentioned in this article:
Charter Behavioral Health Systems; Crescent Operating Inc; Crescent Real Estate
Equities Inc; Justice Department; Health and Human Services Department; Magellan
Health Services Inc Related Terms:
Mental Health and Disorders; Finances; Hospitals; Bankruptcies; Frauds and
Swindling; Medicaid
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
May not be reproduced or transmitted without permission.
