Trident Holding Company (Sparks, MD), the nation’s largest nursing home lab operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in the Southern District of New York on February 11. Trident, which employs 4,500 full-time workers and 660 people part time, provides mobile x-ray, ultrasound, and clinical lab testing services to some 12,000 nursing homes, assisted living and correctional facilities in more than 35 states. Its subsidiary lab companies include Diagnostic Laboratories and Radiology (Burbank, CA), Schryver Medical (Denver, CO) and U.S. Lab and Radiology (Brockton, MA).

Trident’s bankruptcy filing showed the company and its subsidiaries had a total of $785 million of secured debt outstanding and missed a $9.2 million interest payment that had been due January 31. Trident’s heavy debt burden became unsustainable due to declining occupancy rates at nursing homes, Medicare CLFS rate cuts, and a botched billing system transition.

Soon after the bankruptcy filing, Trident obtained a $50 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing loan from hedge fund Silver Point Capital (Greenwich, CT), which now has equity control. The loan will allow Trident and its subsidiaries to continue to operate, while it restructures both its debt and business operations. Full details in March 2019 issue of Laboratory Economics.