Excela tries to stay out of giants’ fray

too many patients leave the county for medical care.

Occupancy rates at Excela’s hospitals ranged between 62.5 percent and 70 percent in 2016, according to the stateHealth Department.

Excela is the little guy when compared to the Pittsburgh titans: Highmark Health, corporate parent of the insurer and hospital system, reported $18.6 billion in operating revenue for 2016; UPMC had operating revenue of $13 billion for the same year.

Excela had net patient revenue totaling about $400 million in 2016.

Ready access to capital for new buildings and service improvements and a bigger draw in physician recruitment are among the health system advantages of deeper pockets.

Many independent hospitals have been partnering with larger systems in recent years in providing home medical equipment and in other ways, partly out of financial necessity. About 150 top executives from mostly middlemarket health care companies, said their 2018 growth plans involved merger or acquisition, according to a survey by Bethesda, Md.-based Capital One Healthcare that appeared in Modern Healthcare.

But partnering with a larger system or acquiring a smaller one is not in Excela’s future, Mr. Rogalski insisted.

“Strategically, the community will want to come to us,” he said. “Take care of the community in the right way and we’ll be all right.”