Tenet in talks to sell 5 Georgia hospitals to WellStar
Piedmont Healthcare and Northside Hospital were also reportedly interested in buying Tenet's Georgia hospitals.
Photo of Tenet Healthcare headquarters from Google.
The WellStar Health System plans to buy five Georgia hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare in a sale is estimated to be worth between $300 and $500 million.
The two health systems released a statement Thursday saying they had begun "exclusive, non-binding discussions."
Tenet has reportedly been looking to sell its Georgia hospitals.
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"As we've noted in the past, there are markets where we don't see a path either by acquisition or partnership to develop the scale we believe will be necessary as health-care delivery continues to evolve," Tenet CEO Trevor Fetter reportedly told analysts. "In those markets, we believe our hospitals would be better positioned under another operator."
Piedmont Healthcare and Northside Hospital were also reportedly interested in buying Tenet's Georgia hospitals.
Until last month, WellStar had been in discussions to merge with Emory Healthcare in Georgia, creating a mega health system in Georgia. Those talks reportedly broke off with no reason given.
Hospitals are creating bigger systems for greater leverage with health insurers, which have consolidated to give them more clout to negotiate prices with health systems.
Aetna has proposed an acquisition of Humana, and on Friday, Anthem announced a deal to buy Cigna.
If the Tenet deal goes through, WellStar would gain five Georgia facilities, including Atlanta Medical Center, North Fulton Hospital, South Fulton Medical Center, Spalding Regional Medical Center and Sylvan Grove Hospital.
Twitter: @SusanMorseHFN
