Three Pennsylvania hospitals to be sold

In another move to offload some of its properties, Community Health Services, Inc. is selling three hospitals in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. had been pushing Community Health Services to sell its three hospitals in northeastern Pennsylvania. CHS has secured a deal to sell the facilities to WoodBridge Healthcare.

The company has reached a deal to sell Commonwealth Health and its three hospitals in the Scranton area to WoodBridge Healthcare, Inc. in a $120 million transaction. The organizations announced the transaction last week.

Community Health Services said it expects to close the deal in the fourth quarter of 2024. Assuming the deal is completed, CHS would be leaving the Pennsylvania market.

In the deal, WoodBridge is purchasing Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, a 369-bed facility; Regional Hospital of Scranton, a 186-bed facility; and Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton, with 122 beds. The deal also includes ambulatory surgery centers, clinics, imaging centers and other healthcare locations associated with the facilities.

Community Health Services said it is looking to divest some of its hospitals as it looks to improve its finances. CHS had planned to sell two North Carolina hospitals to Novant Health in a $320 million deal, but Novant said it was dropping its plans to acquire the facilities after federal regulators secured an injunction to significantly delay the deal.

CHS has been reporting losses, but has made some headway in at least cutting losses. The company reported a $13 million net loss in the second quarter of 2024, compared to a $38 million loss in 2023. The company reported $3.14 billion in revenue in the second quarter, an uptick of just under 1% compared to the same period last year.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat and Scranton native, has been critical of Community Health Services’ management of the facilities. In a July 25 letter to CHS, Casey said CHS hasn’t invested sufficiently in the hospitals, and noted that the company’s footprint has dropped from more than 200 hospitals in 2014 to 71 hospitals today. He also urged the company to find a responsible buyer for the hospitals.

“It is CHS’ responsibility to find a trustworthy buyer who has a strong record and experience in running hospitals in order to provide a pathway to safe, affordable, and accessible care for their patients and to the Northeastern Pennsylvania community,” Casey wrote in the letter.

After CHS announced the sale, Casey said he would be looking at the deal to make sure Woodbridge meets its responsibilities to the community.

“I will be monitoring this deal closely to see if new ownership will prioritize re-establishing trust within the community by offering safe, affordable, and accessible care for its patients and fair treatment and compensation for its workers,” Casey said in a statement last week.

WoodBridge is a nonprofit organization and the organization said it will spend the coming weeks learning about the hospitals and conferring with stakeholders to plan for the future. The organization says it is uncertain if the names of the facilities will change.

WoodBridge says it is looking to purchase other hospitals to stabilize them and improve health services in their communities.

“Our goal is to achieve this by acquiring hospitals in urban and rural areas, providing capital and optimizing their operations and services to better position the hospitals and caregivers to serve their patients and their community,” the company said on its website.

U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat who represents the Scranton area, issued a statement expressing hope that the sale could be positive for the region.

“I’m optimistic that these important healthcare assets will be saved and hopeful that this new owner will be more accountable to the patients, to the staff, and to the community it serves,” Cartwright said in a statement.

Pennsylvania continues to see more hospital mergers and acquisitions. Jefferson Health completed its acquisition of the Lehigh Valley Health Network last week, creating a merged system with more than 30 hospitals and 700 other healthcare locations.

In April, Risant Health, a subsidiary of Kaiser Permanente, completed the acquisition of Geisinger Health, based in central Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania Health System announced in January that it plans to acquire Doylestown Health, a provider in the Philadelphia suburbs.