Provision Proton Therapy files for bankruptcy
Provision CARES Proton Therapy, the company that’s been building a freestanding proton therapy center in west Orange County, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December in the Middle District of Tennessee, the home of its headquarters.
The company, which has three centers, two in Tennessee and the incomplete one in Central Florida, told the investors in December that it didn’t have enough money to complete its project here.
“Despite the delay, the company is working toward a restructuring of its obligations and expects to be able to complete the facility in 2021 and to resume equipping the facility with an aim of operations sometime in 2022,” said Mary Lou DuBois, president of Provision Solutions, in an email.
Tennessee-based Provision began the construction of its $95 million project last January at Hamlin in Horizon West. Its plans for the 17-acre campus also includes three medical office buildings. Proton therapy is currently recommended for kids and adults who have tumors that are localized or may be close to critical organs such as the brain and spinal cord. Unlike radiation therapy, which can damage the tissue surrounding the cancer cells, proton therapy beams can be shaped and targeted so that when they reach the tumors they stop, leaving the surrounding tissues mostly undamaged.
The company has about $18.7 million in its accounts for the center but needs at least $7 million more for the remaining construction and equipment. It also needs to pay nearly $3 million in mechanic’s liens filed against the project, according to the filing.
The major part of the Provision CARES Proton Therapy Orlando — a cyclotron — was delivered to the site last November. But, the piece hasn’t been installed and the other required equipment hasn’t been delivered to the site, according to the notice.
If established, Provision will be the second proton therapy center in Central Florida. For now, Orlando Health houses the only proton therapy center in the region.
In an interview with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Terry Douglass, chairman of the board for Provision said, “It’s very possible that we will now have our centers structured in a way where the debt service has been reduced dramatically. That will allow us, one, to provide more charitable care because of uncertainty and reimbursement, and then be able to accept every patient that needs proton therapy.”
In brief...
BERG, a biotech company that uses patient biology and artificial intelligence, is collaborating with AdventHealth to create a patient registry biobank and enhance COVID-19 patient care by rapidly identifying the best path to improve patient outcomes, the two institutions announced.
The new biobank will be used in two phases. In the first, it will focus on patient demographics, COVID-19 clinical information and personal medical history. In the second, there will be an exploratory analysis of long-term medications that could be linked with better outcomes and lower possibility of coronavirus infection, according to BERG.
“This is going to help us not only with this pandemic, but it’ll help us learn about the next one,” said Dr. Steven Smith, chief scientific office at AdventHealth Central Florida, in an interview. “It’s teaching us how to very rapidly adapt and use data and the learnings from our patients that we care for to most effectively treat the next set of patients that come to our doors.”
Dr. Harrison Youmans has joined Rothman Orthopaedics in Orlando. He’s a fellowship-trained sports medicine physician. He was previously with Orlando Health.
Kari Vargas has been named president and CEO of AdventHealth Winter Garden and CEO of the West Orange and South Lake market. Vargas has been with the health system since 2000. Most recently, she was vice president and COO at AdventHealth Orlando.