Dive Brief:
- Community Health Systems plans to divest 10 of its hospitals for an estimated total of $530 million, Modern Healthcare reported.
- The operator of 160 acute care hospitals located in 22 states may then sell up to 20 additional hospitals over the next year and a half, CFO Larry Cash said on a recent call with investors.
- The move follows CHS April divestiture of 38 hospitals that it spun off into an independent company named Quorum Health Corp.
Dive Insight:
CHS aims to narrow its focus toward building up services in the markets where it owns multiple hospitals, as well as enhancing some specialties including orthopedics and cardiology in certain markets where it only has one hospital, Modern Healthcare reported. CHS has 11 "hubs" around which 73 of its hospitals operate.
The 10 hospitals currently slated for sale were not identified, though their profit margins are in the single digits while margins for CHS hospitals more typically average around 15%.
"We will continue to divest hospital operations that cannot meet these criteria and they are not productive to our results," Modern Healthcare quoted Cash from CHS's last earnings call.