Clayton County Hospital and Emory Healthcare in Talks to Form Partnership

May 18th, 2012

Southern Regional Medical Center, a community hospital based in Clayton County, and Emory Healthcare are currently in talks to form an alliance.

Both parties aren’t commenting for now, but health policy consultants say a partnership makes sense.

Southern Regional has seen better days. In 2010, the hospital’s bond rating was downgraded to junk status. In April, its CEO was removed due to continued financial troubles.

David Smith of Kearny Street Consulting says a number of factors have contributed to the hospital’s decline.

“They had a big industrial base down there. You had the Ford factory at the airport. A lot of the industrial base went away and really became more Medicaid-based reimbursement.”

Smith says an affiliation with Emory would put the hospital on solid financial ground.

Meanwhile, a partnership would give Emory a long-desired foothold in south Atlanta, and help increase the system’s occupancy rates.

Charlie Goldberg is with the consulting group Cognosante.

‘You’ve got to have a adequate number of patients, not just because of the revenue but also it’s not good when physicians aren’t seeing enough [patients]. You don’t want to go to an open-heart surgeon that has an opening tomorrow.”

Southern Regional would be the latest community hospital entering into agreements with one of metro Atlanta’s big four hospital systems: Emory, Piedmont, Wellstar, and Northside.