Dive Brief:
- Just weeks after announcing plans to shed another 25 hospitals this year, Community Health Systems has found a buyer for its hospital in Anniston, Alabama.
- The Health Care Authority of the City of Anniston has agreed to purchase 125-bed Stringfellow Memorial Hospital for $25 million, including assumption of a $13 million facility lease, CHS said Friday.
- The deal is expected to close in the 2017 second quarter, pending regulatory approvals.
Dive Insight:
This is the 16th hospital CHS has agreed to let go after announcing a major restructuring last year.
In February, CHS said it would sell off 25 hospitals in 2017, adding to the dozens it sold last year. The struggling hospital operator is also divesting eight hospitals to Steward Health Care.
Prompting this latest round of divestitures was a $1.7 billion net loss in 2016. Revenues for the year fell from $19.4 billion in 2015 to $18.4 billion in 2016 and are expected to slip to $16.2 million or lower this year.
In November, CHS announced it would sell 17 hospitals for approximately $1.2 billion. The Franklin, TN, company is straddling about $15 billion in debt and disclosed nearly a year ago that it would look into selling up to 30 hospitals to bring that figure under control.
CHS has been struggling since its 2014 purchase of Health Management Associates for $7.5 billion. HMA, which owned 23 hospitals and some clinics in Florida, was having financial problems of its own at the time of the sale. Now it’s CHS that is trying to stay afloat by selling off more and more of its hospitals.