Rural hospitals like Sharkey-Issaquena are increasingly endangered, as poverty, declining populations and dwindling inpatient revenue chip away at profits. In 2020, a record 18 were either closed or converted to outpatient facilities, according to the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.
As federal policymakers step up oversight of hospital mergers, more states are taking steps to encourage consolidation in the industry—or to have the final say on whether such moves are anti-competitive.
Weems Memorial Hospital officials came before the county commission Tuesday morning with a financial report that showed some modest improvement over the past year. They left with the commissioners voicing emphatically that they had serious concerns about where things stood.
The hospital first declared a fiscal emergency in November 2022 that would authorize a bankruptcy filing, but hospital management did not pursue bankruptcy until they first looked at short-term solutions.
The Stable Outlook is supported by the expectation that AdventHealth's balance sheet and EBITDA recovery plan, a portfolio review and strategic readjustment of relationships in some of its markets, combined with some easing of the recent industry pressures, should return the organization to its historically very strong operating profile and help in strengthening of the balance sheet.