Dive Brief:
- LifePoint Hospitals plans to keep up its campaign of acquiring other facilities going forward, LifePoint CFO and Executive Vice President Leif Murphy told The Deal.
- The for-profit chain, which is based in Brentwood, Tennessee, has properties in 21 states and controls about 68 separate hospitals, The Deal reports.
- While Murphy didn't say where LifePoint is looking to expand, analyst Frank Morgan of RBC Capital Markets Corp. suggested that the company, whose properties are concentrated in rural areas, wants to move into more suburban markets, according to iHealthBeat. Recent deals include a joint venture between LifePoint, Duke University Health System and Wilson Medical Center.
Dive Insight:
Acquiring hospitals in prosperous suburbs with a high ratio of well-insured residents is critical for many hospital companies, and here we see that LifePoint is one of them. However, given the importance of bulking up to meet the needs of ACO and value-based purchasing schemes, well-positioned suburban hospitals will have many suitors. Let's see how LifePoint does in this competition.