This is a new report that will not restore the image of lucrative private nursing homes in France. The Auditors Court reveals its final observations on the economic and financial situation of the Young Manager Bridge. Founded in 2017, the group quickly expanded from 12 to 31 establishments today, for 1,771 places, divided into île de-France, Normandy, Center-Val-de-Loire and Grand-Eest.
Notable fact, this is the first control of private elderly homes carried out by the wise men of the Rue Cambon.
“The Orpea case had led the parliamentarians to take an article that authorizes the auditing court to control EHPAD groups,” recalls the institution. As part of the “transparency clash” decided by public authorities after the publication of the research book The GraveDiggers Of the journalist Victor Catasnet, the Social Security Financing Law (LFSS) by 2023 has expanded the skills of the Court of Auditors and other authorities, such as Regional Health Agencies (ARS) and departments. Not only can they peel the accounts of medical establishments and services, but also, and above all, those of the managers and groups that control them.
Obstacles for gentle control of control
In the preamble, the report mentions “completely unusual difficulties […]The group of bridges that had multiplied the obstacles to the soft control of control: absence of partial responses or responses to requests for parts and interviews, deferred or fractional responses that what makes operation difficult or even the operation of documents, lack of availability of certain contacts of the headquarters, the inability to produce aggregate management data, access management reference, opposition to the direct opposition with certain contacts, etc., etc.
“The control A (…) focused on a period (2019-2022) during which the Court had no competence to control the accounts and management of the controlling companies. Two legal consultations written by laws associated with the law, transmitted to the court, have spoken in favor of the lack of retroactive application of the new provisions. We had issued the non-reotractivity of the law.”
As a result, instructional times have extended. “Therefore, there have been more than eight months between the initial control notification, in the summer of 2023, and the first deliberation related to provisional observations, then more than nine months between the first deliberation and the second deliberate related to the final observations,” the document details. Therefore, the work of the wise focused mainly on the period 2019-2022, with lighting in the management of 2023.
Despite the obstacles found, the institution managed to produce its one hundred pages report. The first observations indicate contradictions between the management of the establishments in the field and what Bridge states. Constituted by successive reimbursements of existing elderly households, and mostly independent, the group has surprisingly “very centralized governance even if it is presented as a network,” says the auditing court.
Said centralized governance “empties legal autonomy [des] Companies that manage all reality and facilitate comments to the company holder, in their various forms (corporate mandate or management ratesDividends, current accounts of the partners), “says the report.
Voration of EHPAD directors
As a result of this centralized governance, EHPAD directors have “limited management autonomy,” says the court. “Any purchase of more than 1,000 euros is subject to the validation of the group,” he tells a member of the sixth room. Such a low maneuvering room implies a turnover Directors within the group establishments.
And at the group level, on September 1, 2023, the directors parked within each of the 31 EHPads have been recruited for less than two years. “The oldest director (Saint-Antoine residence in Bois-Guillaume in Seine-Maritime) assumed the position on August 30, 2021. Management is vacant in five establishments that benefit from the support of the network,” the report said.
“A note transmitted to the Court in the directors of the establishment analyzed the causes of this instability: national shortage, post-organ context, attractive difficulties, defends Charles Memoune. None of these elements were assumed. None of the corrective actions initiated are mentioned in the report.”
Management that weighs on the quality of the service
However: the auditing court also raises the management that degrades the quality of the service provided to the residents of EHPAD. The authors of the report observe significantly that the Bridge group adjusts the payroll of their establishments in accordance with the evolution of the occupation rate, which has been able to decide in the context of the Covvid crisis and the Orpéa case.
In addition to these reductions of caregivers, there is a significant systity in terms of work stoppages. And this, especially because on the basis of the data communicated by the Directorate of Professional Risks of the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), the loss is greater in the EHPAD of the Bridge group than the average of the sector.
“In 2021, both the frequency and seriousness of accidents at work in the group’s nursing homes are higher than the average, with the consequence of almost 11 days lost per employee,” said the patio, against 8 on average in the sector.
It should be said that in a context marked by the occupation rates that fight to recover and recover its rate of occupation prior to the crisis, and the increase in operating expenses under the effect of inflation, the bridge has treated above all to preserve its profitability as much as possible, which is measured by the Ebitda indicator. To achieve this, the manager has carried out strong policy control of his operating expenses to deal with his financial commitments, since he has taken bank loans to finance his EHPAD acquisitions since 2017. And yet, profitability has only decreased, going from 25% in 2021 to 11% in 2023.
Lack of transparency
Finally, the Auditors Court denounces the lack of transparency of the Bridge group regarding the use of public funds that benefits under the activity of care and care of the dependence of the residents of their establishments.
“The court indicated that the important expenses were unjustifiably accused of the activities of dependence on care and attention, and that, consequently, the results identified in these activities were systematically and artificially reduced in favor of the commercial results that are carried out on the accommodation activity in the group of the sixth chamber of the institution. Capable of estimating the magnitude.
Since September 18, 2024, the Bridge Group has changed governance with strategy disagreements, Charles Memoune thus delivered the Delphine Minguy, who previously directed the Ehpad Medicharme group, who declared himself in bankruptcy last year.
In a response to the Report of the Court of Auditors, the new Directorate indicates that “the observations established by the Court of Auditors over the 2019-2023 period are complete structural group structure “.
At the particular medical level, a geriatrician was recruited as of October 14, 2024 at the head of a new medical address. It is “supported by two territorial nurses that ensure a presence of proximity to the establishments,” specifies Bridge’s new management.
Source: BFM TV
