EXCLUSIVE: Providence to be sold to for-profit hospital company

After 77 years as the Capital City’s Catholic hospital, Providence Hospital will become part of a for-profit hospital company by the end of the year, the new owners told The State newspaper Tuesday.

LifePoint Health leaders promised more efficient health care and a seamless transition.

“Our goal is for the public not to see any difference,” said David Dill, president and chief operating officer of Brentwood, Tenn.-based LifePoint, a stockholder-owned hospital company.

Neither LifePoint executives nor leaders of Providence would disclose the sales price. Providence officials signed a nonbinding letter of intent formally Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman said.

Chief executive officer William F. Carpenter III and other LifePoint officials pledged the hospital will keep its name, most — if not all — of its 1,600 to 1,700 full-time employees and its Catholic mission, including charitable care.

“No one gets turned away at the door,” said Terrence Kessler, Providence’s interim president and chief executive.

Providence will maintain its ties to the Catholic church through the bishop in Charleston and uphold church ethics and religious directives, including its ban on abortions, said Sister Judith Ann Karam, a congregational leader.

“This is a very difficult decision,” she added. “You feel like you want to hand over this precious, precious gem to a company that going to respect that.”

Providence began seriously considering a sale late last year so that it could better navigate the high-dollar, competitive health-care marketplace, Kessler said. “We didn’t have the ability to grow.”

The hospital sought interest from potential buyers, Kessler said. Seven responded.

Providence leaders said they quickly saw that LifePoint shared the goals and commitments that the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine brought to Columbia when they opened the hospital in 1938.

Carpenter, who leads a company that owns more than 60 hospitals in 20 states, said the acquisition is HealthPoint’s first in South Carolina and its “first Catholic hospital.”

“We are delighted at the prospect of welcoming Providence to our system and working with its team to define how LifePoint’s financial strength, operational expertise and deep clinical and quality resources can build on their great accomplishments,” Carpenter said.

The purchase, which requires approval by the state attorney general’s office, includes Providence’s satellite hospital in Northeast Columbia.

Carpenter and Dill said patients can expect significant investment in new state-of-the-art equipment at Providence. The equipment will complement what Dill called “a great group of doctors.”

There are no immediate plans for brick-and-mortar expansions, and they declined to say how much LifePoint plans to invest in Providence, whose primary facility is in the city’s urban community, in a commercial-and-residential corridor along Forest Drive near Two Notch Road. “We look forward to sharing details when it’s timely,” Carpenter said.

LifePoint pledges to provide Providence with new clinical, financial and operational resources. LifePoint also said it will expand primary-care services, provide charitable care and bring more innovation to the community.

Providence board chairman Michael Kapp, who was born at Providence, said Columbia has become “a contentious place to try to do business. We see this as an opportunity to grow and expand our services and mission in South Carolina.”

The purchase will strengthen the position of Providence as a statewide leader in cardiac and orthopedic care, LifePoint officials said.

Providence opened its cardiac-care unit in February 1974. The first open-heart surgery was performed there Sept. 11, 1974.

In 2012, Providence Heart & Vascular Institute got a three-star rating from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for the 17th consecutive rating period. Approximately 14 percent of the more than 1,000 heart programs reviewed received a three-star rating, denoting the highest category of quality.

Providence also has been highly rated by Consumer Reports magazine.

LifePoint owns community hospitals, regional health systems, outpatient centers, post-acute facilities and physician practices. The company said it and its subsidiaries are the sole community health-care provider in the majority of non-urban communities where it is located.

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 2:10 PM with the headline "EXCLUSIVE: Providence to be sold to for-profit hospital company."