The company doing business as Northern Louisiana Medical Center has approximately $7 million in outstanding IRS tax liens against it for apparent failure to remit payroll taxes.
Documents on file in Caddo, Bossier, and Lincoln parishes show the unpaid taxes date back to March 2024. The most recent lien was filed in August of this year for $2.7 million.
A check of the records in all three parishes showed the liens still outstanding as of midmorning Wednesday despite unofficial word from NLMC that the liens have been paid and that it’s the IRS that’s late in notifying the respective clerk of court’s offices.
The IRS generally releases a federal tax lien within 30 days after the tax debt is fully paid. The IRS will then file a Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien with the same recording office — in this case, the clerks of court in Caddo, Bosssier, and Lincoln parishes —where the original notice was filed.
Employers are required by the IRS to withhold and report federal income, social security and Medicare taxes from employees’ paychecks on what’s called a Form 941. The employer is also supposed to report the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare.
Failure to pay means the taxes were apparently deducted from employees’ checks, but not paid to the IRS. In effect, the employer is using the employees’ money.
The liens, filed against CLHG-Ruston, LLC, which is effectively NLMC, are part of $34 million owed statewide by limited liability corporations of which Rock Bordelon is listed as a manager member.
CLHG-Ruston’s articles of incorporation list Bordelon as the company’s organizer and manager.
Bordelon is also president of Allegiance Health Management, the company that provides management to NLMC through a staffing contract.
Attempts to reach Bordelon on Tuesday and Wednesday were unsuccessful. Calls were routed to voice mailboxes for other Allegiance employees.
At least six of the 11 Louisiana hospitals managed by Allegiance appear to have active liens against them for nonpayment of quarterly payroll taxes.
Records show NLMC was first hit with more than a dozen liens beginning in January 2023. All but six show to have been resolved.
The apparently outstanding liens include two filed in Caddo Parish in March 2024 and April 2025 totaling just over $3 million, and four filed in Bossier Parish totaling slightly more than $3.6 million.
The liens are filed in those parishes because Allegiance has corporate offices there. The newest lien, the one filed in August for $2.7 million, is also recorded in Lincoln Parish.
Allegiance-run hospitals in Leesville, Eunice, Minden, Ville Platte, and Oakdale also have what appear to be outstanding liens.
In addition to nonpayment of payroll taxes, CLHG-Ville Platte, which operates as Mercy Regional Medical Center, also has liens for apparent failure to pay unemployment tax, as well as penalties imposed in 2018 and 2021 for failing to provide correct and timely returns, and failure to furnish correct payee statements.
Allegiance picked up Mercy Regional in 2018, along with Acadian Medical Center in Eunice, and Minden Medical Center in Minden.
CLHG-Ruston and Allegiance Management are among more than 200 companies listed on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website tied to Bordelon. Most of the companies are active; about half of them appear to be healthcare related and often entwined with one another.
Allegiance has had tax lien issues before when the company had hospitals in Arkansas.
In 2018, Allegiance agreed to pay $1.7 million to the federal government to settle a lawsuit alleging it submitted claims to Medicare for outpatient psychotherapy services that were not medically reasonable or necessary.
Some of the facilities involved were in Arkansas, some in Texas, and some in Louisiana, according to a press release from the U.S. Justice Department.
Allegiance denied wrongdoing. Allegiance had a psychiatric facility in Ruston when Bordelon bought NLMC in 2020. That facility has since closed. Allegiance acquired NLMC from the Tennessee-based Community Health System.
The Ruston property was CHS’s last Louisiana holding. CHS had also sold Byrd Regional Hospital in Leesville to Allegiance in 2018. According to Caddo Parish records, there’s an outstanding lien against Bordelon’s CLHG-Leesville for just over $20,000 that’s been on the books since November 2018.
In 2024, Bordelon acquired Ruston’s Green Clinic. The deal was announced in September but not completed until November.
A press release issued at the time said the acquisition would “ensure that patients in Ruston and the surrounding communities continue to receive compassionate, high-quality care, with expanded services and improved access to essential healthcare resources.”
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