New Lawsuit Over SUNY's LICH Scoring: Community Groups and Doctors Head Back to Court

I'd say the saga of LICH is never ending, but I'm all too aware that if the state had it's way, the story would have ended a year ago with padlocks on the doors of our hospital and bulldozers idling outside.  The fact that we're still here is a point of pride, but it's a damn shame that we have to fight this hard to see the right thing done.

The Brooklyn Eagle has the latest:

Attorney Jim Walden, of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher told the Brooklyn Eagle that the coalition filed a motion on Thursday “to disqualify certain scores” turned in by panelists ranking the nine suitors vying for LICH.

According to the legal settlement, panelists on the “Technical Committee” were supposed to rank proposals providing full-service hospitals higher than proposals offering fewer medical services.

Several panelists, however, appeared to thumb their noses at these instructions. Six of the evaluators gave their highest score to non-hospital operators, none of whom offered any of the minimum medical services, such as an ICU.

One evaluator gave every one of the four hospital proposals a score of zero, and gave developer Fortis, a non-hospital bidder failing to meet the minimum healthcare requirements, a perfect score of 70.

Technical Committee members chosen by SUNY gave their top collective scores to three non-hospital proposals.

Throwing out the non-compliant votes would maintain the current first-place hospital bidder -- Brooklyn Health Partners (BHP) -- in the pole position, but would move the Prime Healthcare Foundation’s $220 million bid into second-place.

The Prime Healthcare Foundation, together with its affiliate Prime Healthcare Services, operates 25 hospitals across six states, and is in the process of acquiring three hospitals in New Jersey. Prime proposes to operate LICH from four core buildings, immediately return services to previous levels and beyond, and improve efficiency. Prime also commits to investing $40 million in infrastructure improvements and capital expenditures.

SUNY rejected BHP’s bid on Monday, and has already started negotiations with developer Peebles Corporation, which came in second under the contested bidding process.

Click through to Brooklyn Eagle for the full story.