Struggling Accretive to report earnings after nixing Ascension offer

Accretive Health, the Chicago-based revenue-cycle management firm that recently turned down a takeover offer from Ascension Health, will give investors additional details on its financial performance when it reports earnings Wednesday.

In July Accretive lined up a team of financial and legal advisers to evaluate its next move after rejecting the Ascension bid, calling it too low. That system—Accretive’s first and largest client, representing about 50% of its gross revenue—said it does not intend to renew its professional service agreement with Accretive when it expires in August 2017.

The midpoint of Ascension’s preliminary bid represented only 50% of Accretive’s market value on the day the offer was made public, the company said. Since then, Accretive’s shares have slid from $5.42 to below $2.60.

Accretive reported a net loss of $30.4 million on $11 million in revenue in the first quarter of this year compared with a net loss of $54.7 million on $13 million in revenue during the same period last year.

Its physician advisory services business, which offers support to physicians on admission decisions and appealing denied claims, has suffered because of Medicare’s two-midnight rule, the company said.

Over the past year and a half, Accretive has cut jobs, shaken up its management team, and restructured its operations in an attempt to regain profitability. The company’s woes began in 2011 after it paid a fine and agreed to temporarily stop doing business in Minnesota to settle allegations of patient-privacy violations and overly aggressive bill-collection tactics.