(August 10) Total Renal Care discussed their second quarter report in a conference call on the internet today at the Vcall web site. A recorded version will be available for 30 days at that site. Conference call highlights:
- no plans to sell TRC
- more focus on internal operations
- less focus on acquisitions
- no fraud or billing irregularities uncovered

(August 5) Total Renal Care COO/President George B. DeHuff has been named interim CEO, replacing Victor Chatiel.

On July 18, Total Renal Care (TRC) CEO/Chairman Victor Chaltiel announced that he would be stepping down for personal reasons.

Also on July 18, TRC announced lower than expected earnings for the second quarter. They will also incur unexpected charges. John King, the CFO for TRC, also announced his resignation.

When Total Renal Care (TRC) and Renal Treatment Centers (RTC) merged in 1998, they essentially retained their separate billing offices and dialysis billing systems. The RTC billing office in Berwyn, PA had recently implemented a new billing system and has been more successful in capturing revenue than the TRC Tacoma, WA office. The TRC Tacoma office will now be switched to this new billing system. Both Mr. Chaltiel and Mr. King came from TRC (Tacoma) before the merger.

Here is the one year stock price history for TRC. The stock lost over 5% of its value on Friday (July 16) and closed at 12 7/8. Orders to sell TRC stock flooded the market Monday morning (July 19) and trading on TRC stock was delayed for about an hour. The stock opened $4.37 lower at 8 1/2 (33% decline from Friday's closing). After being higher most of the day, the stock closed at 8 5/8 on Monday.

In February of this year, TRC's stock price collapsed and a number of class action suits were filed when "TRC's troubled integration, diminished profitability, and inadequate financial statement disclosures were revealed", according to plaintiff's lawsuits.

As of May 1, TRC owned or managed 552 dialysis clinics serving over 43,000 patients. They are the third largest dialysis provider.

On May 11 of this year, TRC named George B. DeHuff III to the new role of President/COO of TRC.

Here is the Total Renal Care web site.