Regional Hospital Officials Pleased With HealthSouth Acquisition

By Arthur E. Foulkes, The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Ind.

Jul. 16–Terre Haute Regional Hospital officials are looking forward to adding the former HealthSouth facility to the hospital’s property on the city’s south side.

Regional Hospital announced Monday it had bought the 58,000-square-foot building and six acres of land for $7 million.

“It’s a great thing,” said Regional Hospital CEO Chris Hill. Adding the new property will “help us expand some of our current capabilities and free up space inside the hospital,” he said.

HealthSouth Corp. closed its 60-bed, long-term acute care hospital facility last year. At the time the closing was announced, the hospital had 80 full-time employees and 15 patients, according to a Tribune-Star article published at the time.

The purchase of the HealthSouth property could mean Regional Hospital will require additional staff in the future, Hill said.

The hospital at 3901 S. Seventh St. houses 278 beds. The hospital completed a $40 million construction and renovation project in 2004.

HealthSouth was forced to close largely because of a new law designed to limit the number of patients a long-term acute care hospital would receive from a single hospital, HealthSouth officials told the Tribune-Star at the time. The law reduced Medicare reimbursements for long-term acute care hospitals that took more than 25 percent of their patients from a single facility.

At the time of its closing, HealthSouth was taking about 50 percent of its patients from Union Hospital and 30 percent from Terre Haute Regional Hospital, HealthSouth officials said at the time.

Several years earlier, HealthSouth Corp., which is based in Alabama, cut more than 100 jobs at its main headquarters after several company executives pleaded guilty to accounting fraud.

HealthSouth continues to operate as an inpatient provider of rehabilitation services in 26 states and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol HLS.

Regional Hospital opened in its present south-side location in 1979. It operated as St. Anthony’s Hospital from 1882 until 1975, according to the Terre Haute Regional Hospital Web site.

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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