To Tackle Financial Distress, Hospitals, Health Systems Are Turning To Mergers

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Financial Pressures Push More M&A
Nearly a third of announced hospital and health system mergers and acquisitions last year involved a financially distressed partner, a new report shows. Waning COVID-19 relief funds and high labor costs pinched hospital margins in 2023, causing many health systems to seek financial stability with M&A partners. About 28% of announced merger and acquisition proposals included a hospital or health system in financial distress, up from 15% in 2022, according to a report published Thursday by Kaufman Hall. (Kacik, 1/18)

Modern Healthcare: BrightSpring IPO Values Company At Nearly $3B
KKR-backed BrightSpring Health Services plans to raise approximately $960 million in an initial public offering that would value the company at about $3 billion. The home health provider announced plans to go public earlier this month. On Wednesday, it updated its regulatory filing, saying it planned to sell 53.3 million shares of stock priced between $15 and $18 per share. Shares would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BTSG. The company said it will use most of the proceeds to pay down debt. (Eastabrook, 1/18)

Stateline: ‘Shell Game’: When Private Equity Comes To Town, Hospitals Can See Cutbacks, Closures
Peggy Malone walks the quiet halls of Crozer-Chester Medical Center, the Pennsylvania hospital where she’s worked as a registered nurse for the past 35 years, with the feeling she’s drifting through a ghost town. ... Her community — her hospital — is a cautionary tale for what can happen when private equity comes to town. “We want to give good patient care,” she told Stateline. “We want to not be using broken equipment and piecing supplies together. But we don’t have the power to stop what’s happening.” (Claire Vollers, 1/18)

Stat: Hospitals Offer Their Custom-Built Tech For Sale In Search Of New Revenue Streams
Hospitals aren’t usually in the business of selling technology tools. But that’s changing thanks to a collision of financial pressures and an explosion of new technology that could both improve patients’ health and ease the burden of administrative tasks on limited staff. (Ravindranath, 1/19)

Stat: Humana Cuts Profit Projections As Medicare Advantage Costs Soar
Humana’s Medicare Advantage enrollees got care in the hospital and physician clinics way more often than the company predicted at the end of 2023, forcing the health insurance giant on Thursday to drastically slash its profit projections for both 2023 and 2024. (Herman, 1/18)

In legal news —

Reuters: Chicago's NorthShore Hospital To Pay $55 Mln In Class-Action Settlement 
NorthShore University HealthSystem in Illinois has agreed to pay $55 million to resolve a consumer class-action lawsuit in U.S. federal court that would mark the end of more than a decade of litigation over a merger with a rival suburban Chicago hospital. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in a filing on Wednesday disclosed the terms of the settlement with NorthShore, which followed what they described as years of “extensive” evidence collection and “aggressive” legal wrangling over its 2000 merger with rival Highland Park Hospital. (Scarcella, 1/18)

KFF Health News: In This Oklahoma Town, Most Everyone Knows Someone Who’s Been Sued By The Hospital
It took little more than an hour for Deborah Hackler to dispense with the tall stack of debt collection lawsuits that McAlester Regional Medical Center recently brought to small-claims court in this Oklahoma farm community. Hackler, a lawyer who sues patients on behalf of the hospital, buzzed through 51 cases, all but a handful uncontested, as is often the case. She bantered with the judge as she secured nearly $40,000 in judgments, plus 10% in fees for herself, according to court records. (Black and Levey, 1/19)

Houston Chronicle: UMMC Hospital Leader Sentenced To 21 Months In Prison
U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison last week sentenced a Houston businessman who ran the embattled United Memorial Medical Center hospital to 21 months in federal prison and ordered him to pay $11 million in restitution in connection with a federal conspiracy charge, according to documents made public Wednesday. The charge stemmed from an $8 million loan Syed Rizwan Mohiuddin obtained in 2010 with fraudulent records, documents show. (Gill, 1/18)

More hospital news —

WUFT: North Florida Regional Hospital Suspends Surgeries Amid Concerns Over Equipment Sterilization
North Florida Regional Medical Center, one of the state’s largest hospitals, is abruptly suspending surgeries for at least four days to deal with concerns about its processes to sterilize surgical instruments. (Sandoval, 1/18)

WGCU: Lee Health Says Its Emergency Departments Are At Capacity And Recommends Alternatives
Lee Health on Wednesday said it is reaching capacity in its emergency rooms and hospitals as seasonal residents and visitors flood into Southwest Florida and the area population increases. Lee Memorial Hospital reported having more than 1,000 visitors to its emergency rooms on Tuesday. (1/18)

Boston Globe: Could High School Initiative Help Address Hospital Worker Shortage?
The Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers will be revamped to create a guaranteed path to jobs at Mass General Brigham thanks to a multimillion-dollar investment from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation announced Wednesday. The school, an in-district charter within Boston Public Schools, is one of 10 schools and districts around the country that will be funded by a new $250 million initiative. (Huffaker, 1/18)

On artificial intelligence —

Stat: Microsoft Launches AI Tool For Clinical Documentation Through Epic
Microsoft on Thursday said it will launch its artificial intelligence tool for automating clinical documentation within health records software made by Epic, a move to embed the technology in health systems nationwide. (Ross and Trang, 1/18)

Politico: The World Health Organization's AI Warning 
Governments should assess and approve advanced AI models intended for use in health care and medicine if their resources allow, the World Health Organization said in a set of artificial intelligence ethics and governance recommendations released Thursday. (Paun, Payne, Schumaker and Reader, 1/18)