Allegations that a Connecticut nursing home operator let bills go unpaid while using company funds to launch a Nashville record label have drawn the attention of country music star Travis Tritt.
Tritt’s manager, Duke Cooper, told The Associated Press that Tritt is prepared to protect his interests by taking legal action, if needed, against Raymond Termini, the president and chief executive officer of Tritt’s label, Category 5 Records.
Termini is also chief executive officer of Haven Healthcare, a Middletown-based company that runs 25 nursing homes in New England, including 15 in Connecticut. Haven has been fined more than 45 times in three years by state and federal health agencies for poor patient care.
State officials are looking into whether Termini illegally used millions of dollars in Medicaid money for business and real estate transactions unrelated to health care, including the record company’s launch.
Cooper said Tritt has had his own difficulties with the record label, but would not elaborate. He said Tritt is particularly concerned about reports of poor conditions at Haven Healthcare’s nursing homes.
“Travis being a family man … certainly doesn’t condone any of that, if it turns out to be true,” Cooper said. “It’s a sad situation.”
Termini this week said he was angered and shocked by the allegations, and he denied using Medicaid money improperly. He said the money spent on the record label and a lakefront house in Middlefield came from refinancing some of Haven Healthcare’s properties, transactions he said did not affect patient care.
Termini, who declined to comment on Cooper’s statements Tuesday, said Haven Healthcare acted quickly to address problems found at the nursing homes by state inspectors. He added that the company has spent $10 million to increase staffing, and insisted that his nursing homes provide excellent care.
But on Monday, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said the state may need to take over some of Haven’s Connecticut nursing homes because of possible financial problems to ensure proper patient care. She ordered state reviews to be complete by Dec. 1 so officials can decide whether to place any of the nursing homes under state receivership.
Haven Healthcare’s violations, first reported by The Hartford Courant on Sunday, include one nursing home resident in West Haven dying after workers failed to monitor her fluid intake, and another woman with swallowing problems in the same home choking to death on a sandwich left within her reach.
The company has also been fined for allowing some patients to become dehydrated or develop bedsores and infections that led to amputations.
In one instance, the newspaper reported, residents of Haven Healthcare’s nursing home in Jewett City were left in the cold one night in December 2005 when the building ran out of heating oil because of unpaid bills.
“I just find it amazing that if you’re entrusted to care for these people you’re making them spend the night without heat,” Cooper said. “I don’t know what to make of that.”
And at least a dozen creditors are suing Haven Healthcare to recover more than $20 million that they say the company has failed to pay them for medication and medical supplies, The Courant reported.
Termini said much of the company’s problems were caused by a low Medicaid reimbursement rate for health care services. State lawmakers and Rell increased that rate this year.
He also said Haven Healthcare’s patient care record is similar or better than those of other health care companies, adding that there are isolated problems in every nursing home.
The Nashville-based Category 5 Records signed Tritt to a four-year deal in 2006.
Tritt has been a major player in the country music scene for two decades, selling more than 25 million records and earning two Grammy Awards and three CMA honors. He released his first album with Category 5, “The Storm,” in August and plans a yearlong tour beginning Jan. 11 in Bossier City, La.
He has had several No. 1 hits on Billboard’s country music charts, including “Best of Intentions,” “Foolish Pride” and “Anymore.”
