Orpea has misused public money intended for its Ehpad – Ouest-France

Questioned, Orpea recognized, Wednesday June 8, 2022, certain bad practices recounted in the book Les Fossoyeurs. Following the publication of this book at the start of the year, the French nursing and dependency giant had asked two independent firms, Grant Thornton and Alvarez & Marsal, to carry out audits. The latter published a summary of their conclusions. They are disturbing. Regarding the management of public funds intended for the group’s nursing homes in France, the firms have observed several dysfunctions. As “ineligible or excessive amounts declared to the authorities”, which they attribute to a lack of reliability in the process of declaring the workforce, while the author of Les Fossoyeurs Victor Castanet saw it as an opportunity for the group to save money. . Similarly, the firms underline “a lack of reliability of the reconciliation processes between purchase orders, delivery slips and purchase invoices which did not make it possible to systematically detect possible fraud”. Read also: Ehpad Orpea: “Those who set up the system are still there”, denounces Victor Castanet Discounts to inflate the result of the group Serious fact, they underline “a practice of End of Year Discounts (RFA) with certain major suppliers of products financed by public grants not communicated to the authorities as planned”. These rebates made it possible to finance group activities or investments that were not directly linked to care and dependency, which is prohibited. In the same vein, the firms also noted “a practice, outdated since 2017, aimed at maximizing the consumption of the allocation allocated by the authorities to nursing homes for medical devices. This through invoicing by a service provider whose reality could not be verified and having benefited the group through an RFA mechanism”. Through the savings made by the group by misusing public funds, “the surpluses thus generated could contribute to the result” of Orpea, a company listed on the stock exchange. The firms have also identified the remuneration paid, with the approval of the former managing director Yves Le Masne, dismissed since the publication of the book, or members of his team, “to third-party business contributors whose very raised question. These remunerations had been identified by the group as part of its recent internal investigations and some of them already appear, among other transactions, in the complaint filed by Orpea on April 21, 2022 with the Public Prosecutor of Nanterre. , says the press release of the company. Orpea also acknowledges having been the subject of a search on Wednesday June 8 at the headquarters and in some of its establishments: after the inspections carried out by the IGAS and the IGF, an investigation was opened last April by the public prosecutor’s office. from Nanterre. The firms will also have to submit their conclusions within a few days on the themes of the care of residents of nursing homes and on the social aspect. Read also: Orpea. Can becoming a “company with a mission” save the Ehpad group? The management called into question Faced with these revelations, Philippe Charrier, the CEO of Orpea, presents in a press release “to all our stakeholders our most sincere apologies. Since the departure of the former Chief Executive Officer on January 30, 2022, we have taken urgent and substantive measures to correct inefficient systems, eliminate inappropriate practices, sanction individual errors and take action before the competent courts”. According to Le Figaro, in a letter to Philippe Charrier, 14 major investors in Orpea are demanding a total renewal of the board of directors, for lack of “not having been able to date to restore a satisfactory dialogue with the management of the group”. A new managing director, Laurent Guillot, will take up his duties on July 1 at Orpea. Orpea misused public money intended for its nursing homes