State OKs Hospital Takeover

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by Thomas MacMillan | Jun 29, 2012 2:49 pm

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Posted to: Health

Thanks to a freshly inked approval from the state, on July 27 Yale-New Haven Hospital will commence its $160 million takeover of the Hospital of St. Raphael.

The state Department of Public Health’s Office of Health Care Access signed off Wednesday on an “Agreed Settlement” approving Yale-New Haven’s acquisition.

The approval is the final hurdle in a plan that will join the city’s two medical institutions into one 12,000-employee, 1,477-bed entity, under the Yale-New Haven banner.

The state’s Office of Health Care Access was the final regulatory agency that needed to sign off on the plan. The deal already received the blessings of the state attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Catholic church.

With the final piece in place, the hospitals plan to close the acquisition deal on July 29, said Vin Petrini, Yale-New Haven vice-president of public affairs. As of that date, if all goes according to plan, the two hospitals will be operating under one license, Petrini said. (Click here for a background story.)

“We’re in the process of bringing on board 3,500 employees” from St. Raphael’s, Petrini said. Some people, about 200 full-time-equivalents, will become redundant in the merger, he said. “Some managerial positions, for example,” Petrini said. “We’re working very hard to try to find opportunities for those individuals.”

Click here and here to read the approval documents, including details of the acquisition.

The Agreed Settlement states that St. Raphael’s “volume is down approximately 8 percent in the current year and cannot remain a viable standalone provider of hospital services.” The hospital had “significant operating losses for FYs 2005 through 2009,” long-term debt of $67.7 million as of February 2012, and a pension shortfall of about $86 million, according to the settlement.

As part of the acquisition, Yale-New Haven would “address [St. Raphael’s] financial challenges,” the document states. Yale-New Haven would purchase the St. Raphael’s for $160 million.

Yale-New Haven would spend $129.5 million on improvements at St. Raphael’s during the first five years after the acquisition, the document says.

Yale-New Haven would also “respect” St. Raphael’s Catholic tradition by giving the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth to play a leadership role in Catholic matters and retaining the “chapel, religious statuary, and other symbols,” the agreement states.

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