Last December Athens (Ga.) Regional Health System and Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare began to pursue an affiliation agreement. Details about the partnership emerged April 13 at a meeting between Athens-Clarke County commissioners and an attorney involved in the affiliation discussions, reports Athens Banner-Herald.
Below are four quick facts about the partnership.
1. As part of the deal, Piedmont would take on $195 million in bonds ARHS sold in 2007 and 2012, which Piedmont said it could pay off by March 1, 2022.
2. Piedmont would spend $325 million on capital improvements to ARHS facilities throughout the next seven years. Athens' needs include renovations to labor and delivery rooms, emergency rooms and intensive care units, the construction of outpatients centers in outlying communities, and purchasing costly robotic surgical equipment and accounting and revenue cycle software.
3. Athens (Ga.) Regional Medical Center patients would gain access to Piedmont medical specialists in Atlanta, as well as national cancer and heart disease specialists at Piedmont-affiliated MD Andersen Cancer Center in Houston and Cleveland Clinic.
4. In exchange for accepting Piedmont's capital infusion, Athens would give up some control over its operations. Keith Anderson, the attorney who helped ARHS negotiate the deal, told county commissioners the partnership would be a "change-of-control transaction" where Piedmont would become the parent of ARHS.