Dive Brief:
- Quorum Health CEO Thomas Miller is retiring from his post at the hospital system. Genesis Healthcare board chairman Robert Fish will take over in his stead as interim CEO.
- Miller has led Quorum since the company spun out of Community Health Systems with 38 hospitals in 2016. The company has been focusing on divestitures, selling off 10 hospitals since its spin-out, while strengthening its best-performing facilities.
- Quorum did not say in its statement why Miller is leaving his post. The company's operating revenues for the first quarter of 2018 dropped 7.7% to $486.8 million, from $527.6 million the same period a year ago.
Dive Insight:
Miller was a CHS division president before heading up Quorum. He had been up for re-election as a Quorum director before his departure, but will no longer stand for that seat. Quorum board chair Terry Allison Rappuhn said in a statement that “Now is the right time to transition leadership," as the company focuses on strengthening its portfolio.
The company continues to pare down and refocus. Since 2016, Quorum has brought in $84.8 million in net proceeds from hospital sales and closures. The majority of that — $74.9 million — was used to pay down debt.
Quorum’s net loss more than tripled to $98.5 million in Q1 of fiscal year 2018, down from $27.2 million the prior year. Contributing to that loss were $13.7 million in costs related to a hospital closure and $7.8 million in losses from the sale of two others.
The hospital system also said in its financial statement that it is hiring an outside firm to conduct a comprehensive margin improvement program that will focus on underperforming service lines, supply cost management, staff productivity and volume enhancement.
Fish most recently served as interim CEO of San Diego-based Millennium Health and CEO of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania-based Genesis Healthcare.