Richland lawmakers unhappy with Prisma Health’s decision to buy Providence hospitals
Several Richland County lawmakers criticized Prisma Health’s decision to purchase Providence Hospital on Thursday, questioning how the decision would affect patient care and the Midlands economy.
“I’ve been in-patient at Prisma at least twice in the last few years, and it is not what it used to be when it was Palmetto Health,” said state Sen. Mia McLeod, D-Richland.
That concern crossed parties in the state House of Representatives. Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, said Prisma “has got all they can say grace over now.”
“They are struggling to manage from a financial and a patient care perspective,” Finlay said. “The concept that you should make things more complex to make it better is borderline absurd.”
Prisma spokeswoman Tammie Epps said the expanded health care system will actually give patients in the Midlands more options.
“Patients would have access to a full continuum of coordinated and integrated care that has deep resources,” she said. “From an Emergency Department visit in Winnsboro, for example, a patient may see a pediatric specialist in Columbia, or a cancer specialist in Greenville — all connected with a single electronic health record for coordinated care, using the same clinical protocols, all working for the benefit of the patients and communities served.”
Prisma can also consolidate its medical records across all its properties, “which helps physicians and nurses better coordinate clinical care and provides patients with easy access to all their health information,” Epps said.
But McLeod is also concerned about the potential for layoffs and its impact on her constituents. Since October, Prisma Health has laid off more than 500 workers in an effort to “streamline the organization,” management said at the time.
Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, said the consolidation could have a negative impact on the local economy, which last year lost a major corporate headquarters when SCANA and its SCE&G subsidiary was acquired by Dominion Energy of Virginia.
“With SCE&G going to Virginia and Palmetto Health going to Greenville, soon the biggest employer in the state capital will be the state government, and that’s not good,” Harpootlian said. “Good neighbors don’t do what Prisma is doing here, coming in and taking over a major institution without even talking to legislators about it.”
Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, was even more blunt.
“Prisma is the greatest generator of unemployment in Columbia,” he said.
Epps said the integration of the two companies will require Prisma to “redesign and streamline operations,” but couldn’t say what form that will take.
Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Richland, said he spoke to Prisma’s CEO at the time of January’s layoffs and was told, “We have to do this to make the deal work,” referring to the 2017 merger of Columbia-based Palmetto Health and Greenville Health that created Prisma.
“A couple months later, they’re buying Providence,” Jackson said. “I’m very concerned they’re trying to create a health care monopoly.”
The reaction among the state’s political leadership wasn’t entirely negative. Gov. Henry McMaster praised Prisma’s acquisition of KershawHealth, another LifePoint Health property, in a statement Thursday.
“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,” McMaster said in a statement accompanying the Prisma Health news release.
But Jackson said legislators may review the certificate of need Prisma was issued by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control in light of the purchase.
Rutherford went further, calling for an audit to show whether Prisma is truly operating as a non-profit. He also said companies like Prisma that generate a large amount of revenue should be required to pay a fee to local governments, and they shouldn’t require employees to sign a non-compete clause.
“We’re going to do everything we can to stop Prisma from devastating the once-thriving hospital system here,” Rutherford said.
Prisma pointed out that last year, it spent $810 million in “community benefit,” $345.1 million of it in the Midlands. That represents 18% of the system’s expenses.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 4:27 PM.
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