National Medical’s Eamer Quits Helm : Health care: Lawsuits have hurt hospital chain’s stock. Eamer’s successor denies bankruptcy risk.

Richard K. Eamer, the brash founder of National Medical Enterprises, abruptly stepped down as chief executive on Wednesday as the far-flung hospital operating concern confronted serious legal, financial and image problems.

Taking over as chief executive and president, effective June 1, is Jeffrey C. Barbakow, 49, managing director of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. and an outside director of National Medical. Barbakow, as chief of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists Communications Co., engineered the fabled studio’s sale to Pathe Entertainment Group in 1991.

Eamer, 65, will stay on as National Medical’s chairman.

Michael H. Focht Sr., 50, senior executive vice president, immediately took over as chief operating officer, replacing company co-founder Leonard Cohen, 68, who will remain vice chairman.

Santa Monica-based National Medical’s stock has taken a pounding in recent weeks. It fell to a 52-week low of $6.50 a share this week. It closed at $7.50 Wednesday in New York Stock Exchange trading. The stock traded as high as $18.13 a share last year and hit $25.88 in 1991.

Analysts have said the stock’s drop partly reflected investor concerns about a slew of lawsuits brought by insurers and patients accusing National Medical of fraudulent billing, mainly in connection with psychiatric treatment.

The company’s psychiatric division is also being investigated by the FBI and various other federal and state authorities. Federal prosecutors told the Wall Street Journal that they expected indictments against National Medical officials--perhaps including some top executives--to be returned this summer.

To help clean up the scandal, National Medical last November hired Richard P. Kusserow, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services--the government’s top medical fraud sleuth--to review its ethical standards and institute reforms.

Also depressing the stock was the sale earlier this month of virtually the entire holdings of Eamer and Senior Executive Vice President John C. Bedrosian.

National Medical representatives have said that the two insiders’ stakes--2.5 million shares for Eamer and 395,000 shares for Bedrosian--were sold by banks to which the two had pledged the stock as collateral against personal loans.

To cap it all, San Francisco investment analyst Theodore James Jr. of W.I.G. Securities last week issued a withering report in which he predicted that National Medical would be bankrupt within a year.

National Medical called that report irresponsible and accused James of shilling for short sellers who would profit from a decline in the stock. James denied that.

Barbakow, in an interview Wednesday, said Eamer approached him several weeks ago about taking the job. Those discussions, and others involving other company directors, led to Barbakow’s elevation at a regular board meeting on Wednesday, he said.

“It’s a normal succession that makes some sense,” Barbakow said.

Barbakow, who would not comment on any of the legal actions, said the company has a “very, very strong balance sheet,” which was improved recently when a public offering of a British nursing home chain in which National Medical has an interest wiped $100 million of long-term debt off National Medical’s books.

As to the risk of bankruptcy, “if I thought there was any truth to that I wouldn’t have become involved” in the chief executive job, Barbakow said.

Eamer is a former high school dropout and truck driver who returned to school and went on to become an attorney and certified public accountant.

With Cohen and Bedrosian, Eamer founded National Medical in 1969 as a small chain of Southern California hospitals. Over the years, as the company swallowed up other hospitals, it grew to its current size: 50,000 employees, 144 hospitals in 31 states and several foreign countries, and $4 billion in annual revenue.