Prisma Health is buying Columbia’s Providence Hospital
Prisma Health is acquiring Providence Health Hospital and Providence Northeast Hospital, a move one health care economist said was in response to the growth of Lexington Medical Center.
The Greenville-based company announced Thursday it will acquire the Providence Health system in Columbia and KershawHealth in Camden from LifePoint Health. The price of the purchase was not disclosed.
The move gives Prisma four of the Columbia area’s five major hospitals: Prisma Health Richland; Prisma Health Baptist; Prisma Health Baptist Parkridge; Providence and Providence Northeast.
The fifth major Columbia-area hospital is Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia.
“Providence and KershawHealth are known to share our commitment to improving patient experiences, clinical quality and access to care,” Mark O’Halla, president and CEO of Prisma Health, said in a news release. “We look forward to continuing our mutual goal of enhancing the health of our communities.”
Prisma Health was formed in November 2017 after Midlands-based Palmetto Health and the Greenville Health System merged to create the largest health system in South Carolina with 18 hospitals.
Providence was Columbia’s Catholic hospital for 77 years until LifePoint Health of Tennessee purchased it in 2015.
Prisma also has been adding other local health care offices recently, including several smaller, family practices. In October, Prisma purchased Columbia Heart, adding its 15 cardiologists to the company.
At the same time, Prisma Health has been shedding employees. Since October, Prisma Health has laid off more than 500 workers in an effort to “streamline the organization,” O’Halla said at the time.
The latest acquisition will likely lead to more layoffs within the Prisma system, particularly at Providence and Kershaw, said Columbia-based medical research sociologist Emerson Smith.
The layoffs “will be in terms of administration and staffing,” as the new system eliminates redundancies, said Smith, who has worked at both Palmetto Health, before it became Prisma Health, and Providence.
He said the acquisition is intended to blunt some of the inroads made by Lexington Medical Center into Richland County. The Lexington Medical Center network has at least nine private practices in northeast Richland County. It also is building a 225,000-square-foot medical clinic in fast-growing northeast Columbia at Clemson and Longtown roads, targeted for completion in December.
LMC’s new northeast facility will be less than five miles from Providence Health Northeast.
The five-floor facility will offer urgent care, imaging, outpatient surgeries, occupational and physical therapy, as well as a walking trail and classroom space, according to a news release from the hospital. It will be less than five miles from Providence Health Northeast.
LMC’s construction of that facility “was a real blow not only to Providence but to what was the Palmetto Health system,” Smith said..
Lexington Medical’s increased presence in cardiovascular treatment and surgery — once the domain of Providence Hospital — has also hit the bottom lines of Prisma and Providence, he said.
Prisma acquired Columbia Heart to bolster itself against the growth of cardiovascular care at Lexington Medical Center, Smith said. And the acquisition of Providence builds on that.
The news elicited concern from Lexington Medical Center, especially about accessibility and affordability of health care.
“Prisma Health’s potential acquisition of Providence Health raises concerns because, as they become a larger corporate conglomerate, we believe it will adversely affect access, quality, and care for patients and families across the Midlands,” said Tod Augsburger, Lexington Medical president and CEO, who referred to LMC as “the only locally owned independent hospital in the Midlands of South Carolina.”
But Smith said he is not buying Lexington Medical’s concern about limited patient access to health care in Richland County, “except in terms of insurance companies,” which now have fewer choices of hospitals to direct patients.
Prisma’s planned acquisition drew the ire of several Richland County legislators from both parties, who said they were concerned about additional layoffs and the quality of patient care.
“They are struggling to manage from a financial and a patient care perspective,” Republican state Rep. Kirkman Finlay said. “The concept that you should make things more complex to make it better is borderline absurd.”
By adding KershawHealth, Prisma will also add a Camden medical center, an outpatient urgent care in Elgin, and a medical complex, sleep diagnostics center and physical therapy location in Kershaw. Providence Health also operated an emergency room in Fairfield County.
“Ensuring that we maintain access to health care in South Carolina’s rural communities has been a priority of my administration, but we’ve always known that the private sector would be our most important partners in reaching that goal,” S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster in a statement accompanying the Prisma Health news release.
“This proposed acquisition would provide new opportunities to enhance clinical quality and improve access to affordable care for patients in the Midlands and beyond, but it also shows that Prisma Health is committed to the communities it serves, and for that, we should be grateful.”
Prisma Health–Midlands
Member hospitals
▪ Prisma Health Baptist Hospital
▪ Prisma Health Baptist Parkridge Hospital
▪ Prisma Health Children’s Hospital
▪ Prisma Health Heart Hospital
▪ Prisma Health Richland Hospital
▪ Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital
Source: Prisma Health
This is a developing story. Check back for more details.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 10:51 AM.
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