The main HIlls & Dales Hospital in Cass City.
Three hospitals in Michigan’s Thumb region are merging to become a single health system.
The rural hospitals — Deckerville Community Hospital, Hills & Dales Healthcare in Cass City and Marlette Regional Hospital — are now Aspire Rural Health System, the companies announced this week.
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The hospitals in Marlette and Deckerville previously operated under an affiliation agreement known as United Healthcare Partners, a deal solidified in 2022. The pair now adds Hills & Dales into the system and takes on the new name.
The new health system will operate under a single board made up of members from the three hospitals’ individual boards, which will be dissolved. Angie McConnachie, CEO of United Healthcare Partners, and Andy Daniels, president and CEO of Hills & Daniels, will serve as co-CEOs of the Aspire Rural system.
“I am excited for what this means for the future of healthcare in The Thumb. I know that we are stronger together, and I look forward to all that we can achieve for our patients and communities through this combination,” McConnachie said in a press release. “Ultimately, this is about keeping local healthcare local and improving care for generations to come.”
The three hospitals will continue to operate under their current names, the organization said in a press release. It’s unclear what administrative functions will be combined in the future.
The organization said it is merging together to preserve its “charitable, not-for-profit missions to serve, to continue offering charity care and services to all members of our community, including the underserved.”
Rural hospitals have long faced financial constraints as rapid consolidation continues to happen across the healthcare sector.
Since 2005, 104 rural hospitals — about 2% of all U.S. hospitals — have closed with an additional 600 under the risk of closure, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
In Michigan, three rural hospitals have closed since 2005, including Corewell Health’s Kelsey Hospital in Lakeview, 48 miles northeast of Grand Rapids.
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Corewell said it shuttered the hospital due to low emergency room volumes and aging infrastructure.
Rural hospitals, particularly independent ones, fear poor financials will force them to be acquired by a dominant health system that would end services or even shutter, leaving the local community in the lurch.
The combination to form Aspire Health is likely an attempt to insulate the community from that.
Memorial Healthcare, an independent hospital in Owosso, created last month a parent company, Memorial Health System, over its operations. The move is designed to allow the hospital to operate more like a health system and bring new ventures under its umbrella without tying them directly to the 102-year-old nonprofit hospital.
But it’s also a defensive move as its CEO Brian Long has refused to seek out merger opportunities when he took over as the head of the hospital more than a decade ago.
“This isn’t a system operating as a multi-hospital structure,” Long told Crain’s. “We have grown in footprint and in greater vertical integration in supporting services that are hopefully symbiotic with future moves. This mitigates risk and allows us to continue the not-for-profit hospital but with the ability to hang a for-profit business off the system.”
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