When it came time to purchase a family car some years back, there was plenty of research involved. I did a deep dive into all the information available and went on test drives after narrowing it down to three top models.
The goal was to find a car we’d be happy with for a long time, could afford and wouldn’t turn out to be a lemon. Seven years later, we know we made a good investment.
Likewise, we looked at 30 houses before buying one, comparing schools, property taxes, room sizes and yards. Before making an offer, I parked on the block a few times to get a feel for the neighborhood.
Who doesn’t do enough of that homework, that due diligence, when it comes to a big purchase?
Apparently, some hospital executives. That might sound harsh, but I’m having a hard time understanding the rationale of hospital buyers who acquire a facility, only to decide not too many years later that it wasn’t a good investment. Time and time again, the hospitals that are shuttered are in economically disadvantaged communities–that have been so for years–and rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements.
The immediate effects of a hospital closing: The hulking facility sits empty with little chance of being repurposed and workers lose their jobs. Patients, who frequently have transportation challenges, have one fewer place to receive care. There are other repercussions too, as reporters Kara Hartnett and Alex Kacik detail in their story this week, “What happens when a safety-net hospital closes?”
The story focuses on two such events: the November closing of Atlanta Medical Center, a 460-bed hospital in the city’s center that Wellstar Health System acquired in 2016 from Tenet Healthcare Corp., and the 2019 shutdown of 496-bed Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, purchased from Tenet only a year earlier by California private equity investor Joel Freedman. It closed just months after filing for bankruptcy. There are other examples as well, prompting one consultant to call the pattern of closings “ominous.”
Importantly, as Hartnett and Kacik write, there are a few optimistic signs of other health systems stepping in to help those patients and communities.
Those leaders should be applauded, and if the strategies work, they should mentor others in the industry.
Regardless of where they live and how much they can afford to pay, patients deserve better.
