Oregon health system Asante, which last year closed a community hospital citing financial difficulties, is seeking to “dodge state review” of a surgery center purchase, according to The Lund Report, which covers health news in Oregon and Washington.
The outlet reports that Asante “quietly asked the state for permission to spend an undisclosed amount of money to buy a standalone surgery center in Medford,” but has “since declined to provide requested information about the deal for the state’s review” and is now “asking to bypass the state’s approval process — saying the small surgery business is at risk of closing otherwise.”
Lund reports that “state officials charged with curbing costs want to know how much the cost of a given surgery will go up if the deal goes through. And leaders of Asante — a nonprofit that employs more than 6,000 people and operates hospitals in Medford, Grants Pass, and for a while longer, Ashland — don’t want to answer.”
Read much more about the situation in The Lund Report’s full story.
