![]() hospitals, often in low-income communities. The publicly-traded Medical Properties Trust has bought up the real estate of nearly 200 U.S. "Just put simply, they bought the real estate out of Prospect and leased it back to Prospect," said Rob Simone, an analyst at a Connecticut-based research firm called Hedgeye. In December and again for this report, Lee declined requests to be interviewed.Īfter paying themselves the $457 million dividend, Prospect Medical's owners then sold off the land and the buildings of the Pennsylvania health system to a Birmingham, Alabama-based firm called Medical Properties Trust. "It'd be like a homeowner going to a bank, taking out a $100,000 loan and instead of using it to invest in their property or pay for their kids to go to college, what they did was they just basically stuck it in their pockets as cash," Neronha told CBS News in December. Sam Lee, the CEO of Prospect Medical, took home about approximately $90 million, a sum confirmed to CBS News by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, who investigated the company's finances in 2019 for a proposed company transaction. The first move was in 2018 when Prospect Medical's owners took out a $1.12 billion loan and paid themselves a $457 million dividend. ![]() In December, CBS News reported on a series of financial moves executed by Prospect Medical management and its private equity backers that legally siphoned money away from hospital operations before the closure. "It's gonna cost some of them their lives." "Hospital systems are struggling" "It did hurt them, it's going to continue to hurt them," McCans said. McCans said the hospital's closure has left some residents of Delaware County "stranded for health care." Data provided by the company shows monthly emergency department visits at its hospitals were up about 14% between January 2022, when Prospect Medical began cutting services at Delaware County Memorial, and January 2023. Many of the nearby hospitals, including Lankenau, are operated by the nonprofit Main Line Health. In January, 911 dispatch audio obtained by CBS News revealed two shooting victims who arrived at the closed emergency department at Delaware County Memorial had to be taken by ambulance to Lakeneau Medical Center - nearly five miles away. When contacted by CBS News, Reuther said Prospect took "her remarks out of context" and "there are no findings, preliminary or otherwise." She said the county had taken steps following the closure to alter how it dispatches ambulance services, which may be keeping response times down but increasing caseloads and coverage areas for first responders like McCans. The company cited recent comments by Christine Reuther, a Delaware County official, to suggest the county had conducted a preliminary study of the county's EMS system that "showed no change in response time due to the closure" of the hospital. Prospect Medical Holdings told CBS News in a statement it had "not been notified by EMS or any state agency that there has been a significant increase in EMS response times or that other local hospitals have been significantly impacted by the closure" of Delaware County Memorial. ![]() In a press release at the time of the purchase, Prospect Medical promised its investments into the health system would "dramatically increase the ability of Crozer-Keystone facilities to modernize, attract more patients, and expand service to the community." Yet two of the four hospitals in the health system - now called Crozer Health - closed last year, including Delaware County Memorial. With the help of private equity investors, Prospect Medical acquired Delaware County Memorial in 2016 as part of its purchase of Crozer-Keystone Health System, a nonprofit Pennsylvania health system that was in danger of failing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |