FMC, Atrium deal still in works
♦ After documents are finalized the deal must have board and AG approval before moving forward.
The colossal deal between the parent corporation of Floyd Medical Center and North Carolina-based Atrium Health is still in the works and there remain several public hearings before it is finalized.
At this point lawyers are still negotiating the minute details of what will likely be the largest business deal in Floyd County’s history.
A soft deadline to have those items finalized and board-approval ready is Oct. 16. If that deadline is met, FMC’s Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Tommy Manning said, then the agreement will go before the board.
The Floyd Healthcare Management Inc. board will review and vote on the “membership substitution agreement,” Manning said. On top of that board review and approval, there are also several lease restatement agreements which will have to go before the respective boards.
For instance, the Hospital Authority of Floyd County, the owner of the property Floyd Medical Center is located on, has to approve the lease restatement under Atrium. That also applies to Polk Medical Center and Cherokee Medical Center properties as well.
Since the deal between Floyd and Atrium, the business entity of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, is considered a member substitution agreement it will then have to go before the Georgia Attorney General’s office for approval.
Under the rules set out by Georgia’s Hospital Acquisitions Act, AG’s office will file a notice of public hearing within 60 days of the receipt of the proposed agreement. In that hearing, Manning said, there will likely be testimony
from Floyd and Atrium representatives, as well as an independent financial consultant chosen by the attorney general considering the financial impact of the deal. Members of the public can also speak at that hearing.
“The attorney general can review everything to make an informed decision if there is a significant community benefit,” Manning said. As part of that the AG’s office is expected to research things like whether indigent or charitable care will for the community will continue at the same level if the deal is approved.
Within 30 days of that hearing the state should file a report with their decision.
It’s been nine months since the Floyd-Atrium deal was announced in November 2019. FMC President Kurt Stuenkel earlier said the deal was the culmination of a two-year journey for the hospital group as it tried to better position
the hospital for the future.
The broad brush of the deal is that Atrium has agreed to invest $650 million in the Floyd system — including Polk Medical Center and the Cherokee Medical Center — over an 11-year period of time.
On top of that there’s a sizable sum, $80 million, which will be put toward the Floyd Healthcare Foundation. The foundation is an entity that raised private funds for Floyd Medical Center and supports local health related programs, according to its website.
Atrium has also pledged to refinance pay off a substantial debt, somewhere to the tune of $120 million backed by the Floyd County government.
The monthly joint meeting of the Hospital Authority of Floyd County, Floyd Healthcare Management and Floyd Healthcare Resources is scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. in the Stuenkel Conference Center at Floyd Medical Center.