Moody’s Investors affirms rating for Erlanger hospital

Moody’s Investors Services has affirmed the Baa2 rating for the Erlanger Health System and assigned the Chattanooga-based health system a positive outlook in its latest rating analysis.

Moody’s analysts said Erlanger’s financial assessment “reflects very strong revenue and market share growth across the past four years as the system has recruited new physicians and specialists, invested in new facilities and clinical programs and rebuilt its brand in the southeastern Tennessee market.” The latest ratings report also noted that Erlanger’s “positive outlook reflects our expectation of improved performance and liquidity growth during the last half of fiscal 2018” as many of the expenses of the $100 million installation of a new EPIC computer system end and the hospital revenues are projected to top $1 billion in the next year.

Erlanger CEO Kevin M. Spiegel said the positive outlook reported by Moody’s Investors Service is “further confirmation we have been able to continue to build a financially stable organization while reinvesting” in building or acquiring facilities in both Tennessee and North Carolina.

“Our strong financial results over the past four years have enabled Erlanger to invest tens of millions of dollars in fulfilling the need for long overdue, capital expenditures and a new state-of-the-art clinical informatics system under EPIC,” Spiegel said.