By Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder Blade-Tribune
Florence Hospital at Anthem filed for Chapter 11 reorganization to temporarily hold off creditors and “give us a little maneuverability,” the hospital CEO said Friday.
The hospital at Hunt Highway and Franklin Road celebrated the first anniversary of opening its doors Friday. It filed its case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court the day before.
“We’re getting good support from our primary service area of Florence and Coolidge,” hospital CEO David Wanger said. “Where we’re falling short is the correctional units and our secondary service area of San Tan Valley and Queen Creek.”
He said a private insurer controls the state prison business, and “they don’t seem to want to use the closest facility.” They’re sending inmate patients to Tempe, “which seems to us an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”
Wanger said the hospital has never missed a payment on its secure debt, nor has it missed a payment to its landlord, Medical Properties Trust, a publicly-traded company. In fact, “we’ve never been an hour late” paying the landlord, Wanger said.
The landlord, however, could have terminated the hospital’s lease because the hospital has not obtained the profit margins and cash in the bank specified in the lease. Hospital officials sought Ch. 11 protection “to protect our investors, employees and patients,” Wanger said.
He said they wouldn’t have taken this route “if we didn’t think we could emerge as a leaner, meaner, more profitable institution. … Our intent is to completely pay all debt.”
