What put an end to Fuller Rehab?
By Liz Beaulieu, Editor
Updated Fri February 4, 2011
Ringgold, Ga.-based Fuller Rehab has closed its doors and a bank has seized its assets, according to a story published today in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Here are the details, according to the newspaper:
- Fuller Rehab was in business for 21 years. It had seven locations in four states and employed 82.
- It announced to employees last Friday (Jan. 28) that it would be closing that day.
- It secured jobs for 50 of its 82 employees with a consulting company that it had hired.
- The last paychecks of employees were "retroactively removed...apparently the result of Northwest Georgia Bank's seizure of company assets."
- It struggled with new federal regulations (can anyone say the elimination of the first-month purchase option?) and debt.
More on those federal regulations: Brent Beasley, the compliance officer for the company, told the newspaper that they wreaked havoc on the company's cash flow.
"They couldn't get the financing to continue on," he said. "We would have needed a good-sized loan to get us through the next 10 to 12 months, until those rentals started coming in."
I just got off the phone with another provider in the wheelchair market and he said: "It's a sad day for the industry, but it represents what's going to happen. There's only so much that an industry that has been weakened by audits and pay cuts can do."
I have calls into Fuller Rehab.
Liz Beaulieu
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