HOLLYWOOD, Fla.-Sheridan Healthcare, a physician practice management company, has signed a preliminary agreement with the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to managed the care of 110,000 indigent city residents. Under the five-year agreement, Sheridan will provide comprehensive services to qualified indigents for a monthly capitated fee, said Dennis Gates, Sheridan's chief financial officer. The contract is expected to generate an estimated $70 million a year in gross revenues, Gates said. Sheridan also will lease the city's 270-bed hospital, eight ambulatory-care centers and a 190-bed extended-care facility for $1.5 million a year. The contract allows Sheridan to reduce the lease payments based on its capital spending, Gates said. "We plan to spend about $1.5 million a year to improve the facilities," he said. "In effect, we won't be making lease payments. It's one of the reasons the city wants to do the deal so they get the improvements." During the past 18 months, Puerto Rico has been privatizing its Medicaid program, which covers about 500,000 residents. Last year, Miami-based Physicians Corporation of America signed a Medicaid contract worth $100 million in central Puerto Rico (Oct. 30, 1995, p. 65).
NASHVILLE-The Tennessee Hospital Association has joined the chorus of hospital organizations that have dropped the word "hospital" from their name to reflect the growing diversity of their membership. On Jan. 1, the THA formally changed its name to THA-An Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.