This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Georgia Health News is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
State health officials had just told a conference filled with industry players about a federal program that would dramatically increase payments for care provided to nursing home residents. But there was a catch: To obtain the bonus money, the nursing home had to be owned by a public agency affiliated with a hospital.
Rollins owned a chain of nursing homes and didn’t seem to qualify for the program. But he dreamed up a workaround. His company had partnered with development authorities, which are designed to attract new businesses and jobs to counties, to secure tax-exempt bonds for its nursing homes. Rollins believed he could persuade development authority officials to use their agencies to apply for those bonus payments from Medicaid. The idea hinged on convincing the federal government that the owners of the nursing homes were those agencies. Not his chain.
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