Article
What happened
West Suburban Medical Center, a 234-bed hospital in Oak Park owned by Chicago-based Resilience Healthcare, stopped accepting ambulances and walk-in emergency patients on the afternoon of March 25 and paused care in its hospital and clinics. Hundreds of employees are being furloughed, and leaders were working to discharge or transfer roughly 70 remaining patients. A spokesperson said services would resume once the revenue needed to fund operations comes in.
The company’s explanation centers on its electronic medical record. The hospital switched systems about a year ago, and the spokesperson said the new system never worked correctly. CEO Manoj Prasad told a local paper that at least half of the hospital’s work had gone unbilled and that it had operated on roughly 10% to 15% of normal income for a year. Staff have turned to a manual billing workaround that is starting to bring in cash, but catching up will take months.
The billing problem is not the whole story. Local reporting has documented unpaid taxes, failed safety inspections and the loss of residency accreditation at the parent company, and sister hospital Weiss Memorial closed after Medicare moved to end its participation. State legislators have questioned whether the closure followed proper process.
Why every system should take note
Most hospitals will never face a collapse like this, but any major records or revenue cycle conversion can produce a temporary drop in clean claims and cash. The difference between a manageable dip and a crisis is how fast leaders see it and how much liquidity they hold while they fix it. Here, the CEO said he had known for 11 months that billing was inaccurate.
Controls to put in place before and after go-live
- Daily cash indicators: Track charges, claims submitted, denials, and cash collected against pre-conversion baselines every day for at least six months.
- Clear escalation triggers: Define in advance the variance that sends an issue to the CFO, CEO and board, and the actions that follow.
- Liquidity buffer: Line up a credit facility or payer advance options before go-live, not after collections fall.
- Vendor accountability: Build performance commitments and remediation support into the contract, and hold regular executive-level reviews.
- Board visibility: Give the finance committee a simple monthly view of revenue cycle health through the stabilization period.
Archive entry for Mar 27, 2026, added Nov. 11, 2026.
Sources
- Illinois hospital pauses patient care amid payroll challenges (Becker’s Hospital Review, Mar 26, 2026)
- West Suburban Medical Center closes patient care amid payroll crisis (Wednesday Journal of Oak Park, Mar 25, 2026)
- West Suburban, Weiss hospitals suspending services due to billing problems (ABC7 Chicago, Mar 26, 2026)