Connolly Dermatology, with 30 offices mostly in N.J. and Pa., is under investigation after missing payroll
The practice has expanded rapidly in recent years. At least one landlord has sued because of unpaid rent.
The New Jersey Department of Labor is investigating complaints that Connolly Dermatology, a privately owned practice with 30 offices mostly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has missed payrolls during the last three weeks, an agency spokesperson said this week.
Coyle S. Connolly, a dermatologist who is president of the fast-growing practice based in Linwood, N.J., has not responded to emails or texts from The Inquirer seeking comment since Friday. Messages could not be left on his cell phone, where voicemail capacity was full.
Three employees told The Inquirer that this is Connolly’s second payroll lapse this year. This round is more troubling, they said.
“We were going months without supplies,” such as paper towels, toilet paper, paper toner, said Tracy Piccardo, a receptionist in Connolly’s Linwood office.
“When our pay didn’t come into our bank account, I knew that this time was way different than the last time. Nobody’s showing up. Everybody’s checked out,” she said.
When pay for staff was delayed for a week in February, Connolly told staff that insurance payments had lagged, Piccardo and her coworker, Lala Ramirez, said in a joint interview Friday.
This time, “no one is saying anything about the pay at all,” Ramirez said.
Providers — mostly advanced practitioners like nurse practitioners and physician assistants — went without pay for about a month in February and March, employees said. The company pays employees every other week.
Its website lists three doctors and 36 advanced practitioners.
The website states that Connolly received medical training at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He founded the practice in 1998, the Press of Atlantic City reported in 2023. when the company employed 150 people.
The company has doubled in size in recent years, adding numerous locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Miami, according to an Inquirer review of historical web pages.
An office at 740 Bethlehem Pike in Montgomeryville was part of the expansion in Pennsylvania.
Connolly signed a 10-year lease for 3,000 square feet in April 2025 with monthly rent of $12,500, not including taxes and utilities, according to a May 5 lawsuit in Montgomery County Court brought by the landlord, Montgomeryville Realty Associates LLC.
A year later, Connolly failed to make the rent payment, the complaint said. As of the filing date, Connolly had not responded to the landlord’s request for payment.
News of the payroll problems reached Carol Blymire, a patient at the Cape May Courthouse location, when she was shopping at a nearby Acme Market two weeks ago.
She overheard a woman wearing Connolly Dermatology scrubs telling someone on the phone, while crying, that she hadn’t been paid and had to start applying for other jobs.
Piccardo and Ramirez are among those who were looking for new jobs.
“So many people are suffering,” Ramirez said. “They’re not able to pay for their food, their rent, their bills, their kids.”
