Hospital Corp. of America this week revised its offer to lease Jefferson Parish’s public hospitals to minimize the parish’s potential obligation at the end of a 30-year term. HCA has also commissioned an analysis of economic impact claims that HCA and Louisiana Children’s Medical Center are using to promote their offers. The Parish Council’s next step in deciding how and to whom to lease East Jefferson General Hospital and West Jefferson Medical Center, meanwhile, remains unclear.
HCA’s latest offer requires the parish to reimburse it for the depreciated value of new tenant improvements and equipment while leaving open the question of new buildings, which HCA predicts would comprise 70 percent of its capital investments.
HCA’s revised letter of intent submitted to the Parish Council on Tuesday says assets other than tenant improvements, equipment, furniture and fixtures would remain HCA’s property unless the parish agrees to a different arrangement. The company’s previous offer required depreciation reimbursements in exchange for ownership of all capital investments.
On Thursday, Billy Douglass, vice president of HCA’s MidAmerica division, briefed reporters on an HCA-commissioned analysis by Oxford Economics that generally upholds what HCA says is its financial advantage over Children’s. Jefferson Parish recently decided to hire an auditor to validate financial claims in the lease proposals, although it’s somewhat unclear what sort of analysis the parish is seeking.
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Parish Council Chairman Chris Roberts said at Wednesday’s council meeting that the council, administration and inspector general’s office are having internal discussions on how to proceed.
The audit the parish plans to undertake resulted from Roberts’ pointed criticism last month of HCA’s proposal, particularly the reimbursement provisions.
Date: December 15, 2013