The purchase of Hutcheson Medical Center is expected to be final today, ending its 63-year run as a public hospital.
According to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court earlier this week, Trustee Ronald Glass expects ApolloMD to close on its purchase of Hutcheson "on or around May 12."
Kimberly Johnson, a spokeswoman for Apollo MD, wrote in a Wednesday evening email that her company "is excited that the final steps in the purchase of Cornerstone Medical Center (formerly Hutcheson Medical Center) are near completion. We will begin transferring patients and hospital administrative policies and records (Thursday morning)."
ApolloMD is a physicians group based in Atlanta. Last June, the company began staffing Hutcheson's emergency room with its doctors. Then, in December, representatives offered to buy Hutcheson for $4.2 million in cash. At the time, Hutcheson had been closed for about two weeks, and bankruptcy attorneys were fielding offers from potential buyers.
Though a bankruptcy judge approved the sale in December, ApolloMD could not close on its purchase of Hutcheson until this week. That's because there are a number of legal requirements a company must fulfill in order to take over a health care institution.
For example, members of the attorney general's office in Georgia had to approve the sale after reviewing the case and determining ApolloMD was purchasing Hutcheson at a fair-market value. That happened April 29.
The closing means the Fort Oglethorpe hospital is no longer a public institution. In 1947, with funding from the federal government, the Hospital Authority of Catoosa, Dade and Walker Counties was created to oversee a hospital that would be built in the area.
Hutcheson opened in November 1953, and for decades the hospital authority had final say on big-picture decisions. Elected officials in the three counties made recommendations for who would sit on the board.
That set-up changed in 1995, when the Georgia legislature allowed Hutcheson to create a nonprofit division: Hutcheson Medical Center Inc. The nonprofit division would not be restricted by the same rules as the hospital authority. As part of the agreement, the authority leased the building and land to the nonprofit division for $1 per year.
The hospital authority regained control of Hutcheson in 2011 as part of the shakeup when Erlanger Health System came in to manage Hutcheson.
Hutcheson filed for bankruptcy in November 2014. At the time, the hospital had $30 million in assets and $80 million in liabilities. The hospital closed its doors Dec. 4. It re-opened, however, after ApolloMD announced it would purchase the hospital.
Because the sale had not been closed, ApolloMD served as manager of the hospital for the last five months. Its employees ran the day-to-day operations, but the company did not technically own the hospital.
With the purchase, ApolloMD has renamed the hospital Cornerstone Medical Center, a reference to the "cornerstone club," the group of residents who donated money to build the hospital in the early 1950s.
Unlike Hutcheson, Cornerstone will not be run by a board with people appointed by the local governments. A board of ApolloMD employees will make the final decisions.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6476.