Kershaw County joins chorus of concern over Prisma Health purchase of Providence
Kershaw County has joined the growing chorus of concern over Prisma Health’s acquisition of Providence Health and KershawHealth in Camden.
Particularly, the county said in a news release, it fears Prisma Health might not honor the county’s 2015 agreement with LifePoint Health, Providence and KershawHealth’s former owner, for the health system to provide $1 million a year toward Kershaw County’s EMS service.
“Based on the understanding of the new ownership, Kershaw County will not receive the one-third funding that is afforded to them,” the release said.
It added that the lack of funding “will force the County to consider if the level of EMS service our community is already receiving is feasible to continue.”
Kershaw County joins a bipartisan group of Richland County representatives who are unhappy with the acquisition.
Democratic state Rep. Todd Rutherford, Republican state Rep. Kirkman Finlay and Democratic state Sens. Mia McLeod, Dick Harpootlian and Darrell Jackson all criticized the acquisition after it was announced Thursday.
Their concerns ranged from possible employee layoffs to the level and quality of health care.
Prisma Health, the product of a 2017 merger between Richland County’s Palmetto Health and the Greenville Health System, has resulted in more than 500 layoffs since October and more before that.
“Prisma is the greatest generator of unemployment in Columbia,” Rutherford said.
The representative went further, calling for an audit to show whether Prisma Health is truly operating as a nonprofit. Rutherford also said companies like Prisma Health 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.
The latest acquisition will likely lead to more layoffs within the Prisma Health system, particularly at Providence and Kershaw, said Columbia-based medical research sociologist Emerson Smith. Those layoffs would likely be centered on reducing redundancies in administration but could result in clinical staff layoffs as well, Smith said.
Smith added 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.
Kershaw County officials noted that the acquisition was the third owner for KershawHealth in the past four years.
“The high ownership turnover continues to create untold emotional strain on our citizens as to where their healthcare is coming from and who is treating them,” they said in the release.
They added that “each sale of the hospital has resulted in less healthcare services provided to our community including the dispensing of ambulance services to the County that costs our citizen’s millions of dollars annually, the closing of the Bethune Clinic, and the layoffs of hospital staff.”
However, Prisma Health spokeswoman Tammie Epps said Thursday the expanded health care system will 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.”
The State has reached out to Prisma Health on the status of the $1 million annual ambulance allocation.
Kershaw County officials also criticized the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control for allowing a change in Prisma Health’s certificate of need, “without reaching out to the stakeholders affected. Kershaw County’s only awareness of this was the acknowledgment by Prisma Health that the change was finalized last week.”
Certificates of need are state regulations for establishing or expanding hospitals, clinics and services in a given area. They are intended to control health care costs and ensure that investments by the health system meet a community’s needs.
“Kershaw County encourages our state to address the lack of effective regulation of our healthcare industry and ask South Carolina’s legislators and SCDHEC administrators to respond and act quickly,” county officials said in the release.
Jackson said Thursday legislators are considering a review of Prisma Health’s certificate of need.
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 11:47 AM.