When a critical-response organization mobilizes to provide support to communities impacted by a natural disaster, having the funds to make payroll and operate effectively should not be a concern. To help Jacksonville, Florida-based Critical Response Strategies, LLC (CRS) focus on the important work of providing medical staff to assist in the Hurricane Ian relief effort, LSQ recently originated a $12 million accounts receivable finance facility to provide funding for operations and payroll.
“CRS has been working around the clock since before the hurricane to have people in place to provide critical medical care along Florida’s west coast,” said LSQ Senior Business Development Officer Kyle A. Rich. “We are proud to be partnering with them to help them grow the services they provide with more staff and resources.”
LSQ was able to fund the facility in less than two weeks from the initial introduction. With the funding line, CRS was able to meet payroll for 130 registered nurses and certified nursing assistants and stand up living arrangements for traveling staff in the Ft. Myers area.
“When Ian hit, there were a number of traveling healthcare providers working in the area who went back home, along with permanent, local providers that had their lives turned upside down by the damage,” said Matt Fenner, CFO at Critical Response Strategies. “To ensure patients continued to receive best-in-class care, Lee Health needed additional staff immediately. With LSQ, we were able to get the accelerated funding to help deploy those needed clinicians quickly, as well as house them - and as important, keep them there.”
“I can’t say enough about the team that worked to get this funding available so quickly,” said Chris Collins, LSQ Senior Regional Vice President. “Alan Newbern, one of our field examiners, drove from Atlanta to Jacksonville on very short notice to help get this deal done for CRS.
“We have extensive experience working with emergency-response companies, so they understood the urgency and worked late nights and through the weekend to get everything together to keep the client operating and providing vital services.”
According to Fenner, CRS talked to a few companies about a line of credit but found the LSQ relationship to be the one that best suited their needs.
“The entire group, Chris [Collins], Alan [Newbern], Mike Singer and the underwriting team, and [LSQ National Sales Director] Renee Jackson stayed engaged the whole time – didn’t check out on Friday – and got this done when no one else said they could do it in under a month,” he said. “We weren’t sure exactly what our payment terms would be initially with our clients; we didn’t know if there would be FEMA money that would take a while, so we needed a big enough facility to cover the expenses if the payment terms got extended. Having that uncertainty, one of the differentiators for LSQ was the fact that we aren’t being charged unused funds fees on our credit line, which we would have been charged elsewhere.
“I really applaud LSQ for how quickly they were able to put this together for us and how smoothly the process went.”
As part of the solution, the LSQ platform will also provide the company with comprehensive accounts receivable and customer credit management.