Seven physician-owned facilities that have made headlines with big news this year:
1. A deal to sell Northwest Specialty Hospital fell through, so the Post Falls, Idaho-based facility will remain physician-owned. Northwest Specialty Hospital's owners inked a deal in 2017 to sell it to Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare Health Systems. The agreement expired this year at the end of September.
2. Dallas-based Steward Health Care became the largest physician-owned healthcare system in the U.S. The 35-hospital system announced June 2 that a management group of Steward physicians led by the company's CEO and founder acquired a controlling interest of Steward from Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. The physicians will control 90 percent of the company and Medical Properties Trust will maintain its 10 percent stake.
3. Tulsa (Okla.) ER & Hospital said in May that it would forgive $2.1 million of outstanding patient medical debt. Patients automatically qualified for relief if they received care at the physician-owned hospital from December through April 1.
4. Anesthesiologist Richard Ferdinand Toussaint Jr., MD, was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to involvement in a $200 million fraud scheme at Dallas-based Forest Park Medical Center, a now-defunct physician-owned hospital for bariatric and spinal patients, the Department of Justice announced Aug. 10.
5. San Antonio-based South Texas Spine & Surgical Hospital opened its new outpatient surgery center in August. The new South Texas Spine & Surgical Outpatient Center is a multispecialty facility located beside the main hospital.
6. CMS awarded Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center a five-star rating in patient experience, according to an Aug. 20 announcement. Fairlawn, Ohio-based Crystal Clinic was one of just 11 organizations in the state to attain five stars, the highest possible rating. Crystal Clinic is a physician-owned hospital system with locations throughout Northeast Ohio.
7. In March, Physician Hospitals of America said its membership was ready to mobilize to treat patients in the areas hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The physician-owned hospitals that are members of PHA can serve as additional capacity in communities that need excess hospital and ICU beds to treat patients with the coronavirus.
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