AMED Amedisys Inc

By Lauren Weber 

When unprecedented flooding hit Louisiana last month, Paul Kusserow, CEO of Baton Rouge-based Amedisys Inc., had to consider the safety of both staff and fragile clients. The disaster claimed the life of the home health care company's founder, left almost a quarter of the company's 400 corporate employees with flooded homes and property, and put at risk the firm's local hospice patients.

Among the 13 people who died in the flooding was Bill Borne, Amedisys's 58-year-old founder. Mr. Borne stepped down as CEO in early 2014 shortly before the company agreed to pay $150 million to settle government allegations of Medicare overbilling.

Mr. Kusserow joined Amedisys as chief executive in December 2014. The Rhodes scholar and former Humana Inc. executive described the days after the rains began.

When calls started coming from employees and patients that Saturday, we knew it was extraordinary. We knew the flooding might shut down fuel stations and that wait times would be huge at the remaining ones, so we brought in a fuel truck on Sunday and were dispensing fuel to caregivers so they could get out to see their patients.

I'm based in Nashville and I was only able to get to New Orleans on Wednesday and then drove to Baton Rouge on Thursday. I was there to listen to people, make sure resources were getting to the right people.

We have a disaster preparedness committee and we had a plan. As things were unfolding, we warned people, got them out of offices. We started to collect information on whose property and homes were damaged and we just wired them all $2,500 straight out of the bank account.

I went to a Lowe's in New Orleans in the middle of the night with our general counsel. There were long lines, but we have sharp elbows and we're quick. We bought mops, buckets, fans, bleach, anti-mold spray, anything that was on the shelves.

We turned the employee gym into a storage room. It's now full of mops, brooms, vacuums, and hopefully drywall soon. Now we're trying to find people who can help with FEMA and insurance reimbursements, and we're working on getting people who can help with bank loans. There were a fair amount of people who didn't have flood insurance and will need capital.

My management team and board donated money into an emergency relief fund. Our vendors also donated about $45,000. Employees called and told us what they needed and we sent checks from that fund. I put in $5,000 personally and more is coming.

Our founder [Bill Borne] went missing that Saturday night. Apparently he was out on an ATV checking on some of his neighbors. He was swept away.

Bill was a dynamic, joie de vivre sort a person, a lot of moxie. It wasn't surprising that he'd go out to try to help someone in an unprecedented 500-year flood. When we finally heard [that he was dead], it was a really big shock for people.

I sent an email to employees with my memories of him, especially a conversation he and I had about the Bible. I asked employees to send in their own stories and we'll collect those in a book.

You always have to prepare. It sometimes seems silly or boring but it's really important to run through scenarios. When you have order in place, people feel a sense of purpose when the crisis hits because they're doing tangible things instead of wondering what they should or could be doing.

Every crisis is an opportunity to do the right thing.

Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 21, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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