American Health Services to Delay Payment of Debt

Facing a cash-flow crunch, American Health Services Corp. said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with lenders to delay debt payments as the company seeks to raise needed funds.

American Health President E. Larry Atkins said the company’s primary lender, Philips Credit Corp. of New York, has agreed to a delay in scheduled payments of $660,000. The company also has received a 30-day waiver from a holder of preferred stock, postponing dividend payments of $214,000 due Jan. 1, Atkins said.

The company’s cash is tied up in a $2.5-million Gamma Knife machine it has ordered from Sweden, Atkins said. The machine is used to dissolve brain tumors using a laser-like beam of radiation.

He said the company is trying to sell the machine to another operator to free up cash as the company moves more into diagnosis rather than treatment.

The company runs 37 hospital-affiliated centers in the United States that use imaging techniques such as X-ray, magnetic resonance and ultrasound to diagnose illness.

Atkins said his company’s cash shortage is also due to a $500,000 payment it has not received from one of its imaging centers.

Philips has agreed to extend American Health a new line of credit once it is repaid the $2 million it loaned the company for the Gamma Knife, Atkins said. He said he hopes to do that by the end of the month.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company had revenues of $24.2 million and a net loss of $2.3 million, due to a one-time writedown. That compares with $770,000 in earnings on revenues of $18.4 million for the first nine months of 1989.