Dive Brief:
- The point-man in Tenet Healthcare's attempt to acquire five Connecticut hospitals will return to the state in the next two weeks to have talks with Senate leaders. In December, the for-profit company withdrew its application to purchase five hospitals in Connecticut after the state Office of Health Care Access proposed onerous conditions on Tenet's plans to convert non-profit Waterbury Hospital into a for-profit institution.
- Tenet has been trying for two years to enter the Connecticut market, which is with one exception comprised entirely of non-profit institutions. After the chain formally ended its quest for entry, the incoming Senate leader repeatedly approached Tenet senior VP Trip Pilgrim to try to revive the deal.
- Had the original deal gone through, Tenet would have sunk $400 million into its new hospitals over the first seven years, as well as creating a system with Yale-New Haven Hospital, as part-owner and acting as the group's clinical center.
Dive Insight:
This is early, early days, obviously, but it's interesting to see that Tenet is still at least willing to discuss an entry into the Connecticut market—their original decision to back down was not only a big shift in strategy, but also a pretty devastating blow to Waterbury. Still, the state will have to be a lot more willing to compromise than they were previously to get Tenet back in the door. At the time, OHCA set 47 conditions affecting operations and the office of the attorney general set 21 conditions impacting finances, and Tenet was pretty clear that this was untenable:
"The extensive list of proposed conditions to be imposed on the Waterbury Hospital transaction, which is only the first of four transactions for which we've made applications, has led us to conclude that the approach to regulatory oversight in Connecticut would not enable Tenet to operate the hospitals successfully for the benefit of all stakeholders," Tenet said in a statement.