A new playbook for hospitals: How investors pursue a financial turnaround
AUGUST 24, 2014, 10:34 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2014, 11:21 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
A century ago, a nun often stood outside a factory in the city of Passaic on paydays, holding a tin cup as she begged for donations to care for the poor at St. Mary’s Hospital. It was an era before health insurance, before Medicare and Medicaid, and before health care became the fastest growing sector of the American economy.
Sister Agnes believed in St. Mary’s mission, just as the two nuns still serving at the hospital do today. But to save their hospital, the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth just sold it to a company for which medicine is a business, not a ministry.
As California-based Prime Healthcare Services takes over St. Mary’s and awaits approval to buy three other New Jersey hospitals, it is joining a fast-changing industry that now pumps more than $20 billion a year into the state economy. Prime and other companies look at hospitals like St. Mary’s — hospitals in such grave financial condition that their survival is in doubt — and see the potential for very healthy profits.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/a-new-playbook-for-hospitals-how-investors-pursue-a-financial-turnaround-1.1072991#sthash.yfZn5r0m.dpuf
