Washington County accepts Premier Healthcare bid for county nursing home
WASHINGTON, Pa. — The process of privatizing Washington County Health Center continued Thursday, as the county board of commissioners voted to accept Premier Healthcare Management LLC as “preferred respondent” from among six companies seeking to purchase the 280-bed nursing home in Chartiers Township.
That opens the door to negotiations that aim to lead toward a $26.85 million turnover by Oct. 1 of the center to Premier, a family-run company with offices in Great Neck, New York, and Philadelphia.
Washington County officials said the choice was based in part on Premier’s record of successfully operating and improving facilities at other former county homes.
“We vowed that keeping and enhancing the Health Center’s high quality of care would be our top priority,” county board Chairman Larry Maggi said. “And we believe that Premier will deliver on that pledge.”
“Of the choices, it appears this is the better one,” said Kathy Shaner, an employee at WCHC and a member of the executive board of the Service Employees International Union’s Healthcare Pennsylvania unit, which represents approximately 250 employees at the Chartiers facility.
Pending negotiations, Premier would acquire a center on a 49-acre plot three miles from the county courthouse. It has operated for nearly 40 years, with skilled nursing rehabilitation services, two secured Alzheimer’s units and adult day care services.
Premier owns 23 nursing care facilities in the Northeast and Florida, including centers in Philadelphia, Whitemarsh, Reading, Schuylkill Haven and Butler in Pennsylvania. It also agreed in January to purchase the Armstrong County Health Center in Kittanning for $5.85 million.
“The company is strong financially,” said attorney Mark Stewart, a partner in the Pittsburgh office of Eckert Seamans which oversaw the process of bringing in proposals for the sale of the senior care facility. “They have solid investors.”
As evidence of that, during a PowerPoint presentation at Thursday’s meeting, Stewart pointed out Premier invested more than $3 million in its facilities just in the first quarter of this year. He also said Premier offered a $1 million deposit to become non-refundable at the execution of an agreement with the county.
Stewart also noted that Premier turned around several distressed facilities. After the meeting he said one such facility was a home in eastern Pennsylvania that state officials turned over from a previous owner to Premier.
And as he has pointed out before, Stewart said it would put the facility on county tax rolls and end the need for county subsidies of that home, such as the $4 million projected for this year.
“I am hopeful that this company is as dedicated to the residents in those beds as we have always been,” said Dawn Futrell, for the past three years an internal organizer for SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania.
That union represents 250 employees at the center located for more than four decades at a site three miles from the Washington County courthouse. SEIU, as Local 585 in its earlier days and Healthcare PA more recently, has had contracts with the county for WCHC employees for more than 30 years.
Premier was one of six companies that filed timely “Requests for Qualifications and Proposals” with the county.
The others were Grane Associates LP of suburban Pittsburgh; Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services Group of Hewlett, New York; SolaMed Inc. of Brooklyn, New York; Homestead Group of New Jersey LLC in Newton; and Stone Barn Holdings of Amelia Island, Florida.
Grane withdrew from consideration amid a continued consumer protection lawsuit filed by the state Attorney General’s office that alleged that consumers at Grane homes were misled by failure to provide basic services to elderly and vulnerable residents.
Premier had the middle bid of three finalists, with Comprehensive offering $23 million and SolaMed $28.2 million, but Premier also offered to accept all Health Center employees and has unionized employees at 15 or its 23 existing centers.
“More than any other potential buyer, Premier showed that it has the experience and proven track record of transitioning former county-owned homes into successful privately-owned facilities,” Commissioner Harlan G. Shober Jr. said.
In the final weeks before the county made its decision, the committee of county officials evaluating the would-be buyers toured facilities owned by Premier, Comprehensive and SolaMed, accompanied by Health Center employees and families of some of the WCHC residents.
“While visiting one of Premier’s facilities, it was evident that quality of care is of utmost importance to them, and you could feel a real home-like environment,” Maggi said.
As displayed with signs and concerned statements at commissioners’ meetings in recent months, the union did not want the county to sell the nursing home, suggesting that there were ways to cut costs and raise needed revenue without a sale, and in a way that would maintain what Stewart described as “the county’s high quality of care.”
Stewart said the committee probing would-be buyers reviewed hard data and did not rely simply on presentations from proposers.
SEIU has crossed swords with some of those proposers during other transitions of health care centers from county operation to private hands, such as one Comprehensive acquired in 2014 in Beaver County.
“It has been nothing short of a disaster,” SEIU organizer Rich Goff said after a commissioners’ meeting in February about Brighton Rehabilitation & Wellness Center, also called The Grove at Brighton, formerly known as Friendship Ridge.
The decision Thursday came with little discord.
“You showed us the heart you have for the people you serve,” Commissioner Diana Irey Vaughan told WCHC staffers after Thursday’s meeting.