A New England provider’s abrupt closure blindsided its patients and employees and has prompted class-action litigation alleging negligence.
East Bridgewater, Massachusetts-based Compass Medical served roughly 70,000 patients across six locations south of Boston. The for-profit offered primary care, urgent care and specialty care lines including cardiology and pulmonary medicine.
May 31, the company shuttered its facilities with notices on the doors that the location was “temporarily closed,” according to news reports and a class-action lawsuit filed June 2 by a Massachusetts resident on behalf of other affected patients.
Alongside the closure, Compass removed most of its website and posted a statement informing patients of “our imminent plan to close our practices.”
“After a steady stream of challenges, we were ultimately forced to make the devastating decision to close all offices of Compass Medical PC. effective immediately,” the company wrote alongside messages directing patients with urgent medical attention to one of several local providers. Compass also said it would be updating its website with information for patients hoping to continue care with their primary care clinician and made a form available for requesting medical records.
The “steady stream of challenges” could refer to the rising workforce and supply costs providers have shouldered in recent years, which has left many organizations operating at a loss.
It could also include the $16.4 million penalty a jury ordered Compass to pay to its former business partner Steward Medical Group—a Boston-based, nine-state, 1,700-physician multispecialty practice group affiliated with Steward Health Care—for contract breaches and intentional misrepresentation back in November. That legal battle began when Compass unsuccessfully sued Steward for over $80 million in damages in 2017.
A Steward spokesperson told a local ABC affiliate that the company had yet to receive any of that claim “and has nothing to do with [Compass] going bankrupt.”
A former employee posted videos on Twitter saying that she and others were caught off guard by the closure and that benefits such as insurance coverage were not being extended. Compass employed more than 400 people across its locations.
Richard Callanan, the patient who filed the class-action lawsuit, alleged that Compass would have known it was shutting down “long before” May 31 and had a responsibility to give customers advanced notice that their medical care facilities would no longer be available.
“Compass deprived Plaintiff and the members of the putative class of the advance opportunity to make adequate arrangements for continuity of their medical care and future care and treatment planning with non-Compass medical providers and facilities,” Callanan wrote in his complaint (PDF). “Furthermore, Compass failed to provide any reasonable notice, guidance, assistance or transparency to its patients/customers inter alia as to how to find a new caregiver, how to continue with treatment, how to fill or re-fill prescriptions and how to access their medical records to facilitate future care.”
Callanan's complaint alleges seven counts that include negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, intentional misrepresentation and fraud. He is seeking an order determining Compass’ liability “for damages caused by its unlawful and tortious acts and omissions” as well as relief for those damages and an enjoinment order, according to the complaint.
In a June 3 statement, Bruce Weinstein, M.D., president of Compass’ board of directors, said the closure “became a necessity … when our plan to continue operations collapsed” on May 26—five days before the doors were locked and a week before employees logged their final day on the job. He said the company has helped providers find other locations to practice and cited career resources provided to other employees.
Steward, which operates hospitals in the area, has also started its own phone line for Compass patients and is holding job fairs this week for those who lost their jobs.