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Alvarado Hospital's Doctors Want Voice in Selection of Buyer

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 June 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Cheryl Clark, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Jun. 24--An attorney representing 400 physicians on staff at Alvarado Hospital says the doctors have a right to influence Tenet Healthcare's selection of a buyer for the facility.

He and the physicians point to a state law that they say requires them to guard quality and access to Alvarado's health care. Assuring that Alvarado's buyer maintains the hospital's level of services fits in with that mandate, they said.

"We want to let Tenet know that we want to be at the table when they go through their prospective bidders," said Dr. Ted Mazer, an ear, nose and throat specialist on staff at Alvarado and president of the San Diego County Medical Society.

However, Tenet officials regard the sale of Alvarado as a confidential process, said Steve Campinini, a Tenet spokesman in Dallas. The hospital's doctors will be informed "at an appropriate time," he added.

Tenet "has always valued the input and suggestions from the physicians," Campinini said. "If they have a concern, they can raise it to the management of Alvarado or Tenet, and they would be happy to listen."

Tenet is reviewing the qualifications of more than 30 potential bidders who have expressed initial interest in buying Alvarado, Campinini said. He wouldn't specify how many of those parties operate acute-care hospitals or how they plan to use Alvarado's property, a 40-acre hillside campus in the College Area.

Market analysts have said Alvarado could fetch as much as $57 million. The buyer also would have to spend about $70 million on state-mandated seismic upgrades for the hospital.

Last month, the U.S. Office of Inspector General ordered Tenet to sell Alvarado by February or lose federal payments, which in effect would force its closure. Federal officials believe that Alvarado executives made illegal payments to physicians for referring patients to the hospital -- an accusation that Tenet denies.

Alvarado's physicians and other staff members are concerned that Tenet might be entertaining proposals from prospective buyers who would not keep the facility as a hospital, or who might not have a reputation for running good health care facilities, said Tom Curtis of Bond Curtis LLP in Pasadena, who is representing the Alvarado doctors.

For example, developers could build housing or a shopping mall on the property, which is near San Diego State University and a trolley station.

The Alvarado physicians also worry about a purchase by Kaiser Permanente, which might acquire Alvarado to expand its hospital services in San Diego County. Kaiser would limit physician access to its salaried doctors, forcing patients to enroll in Kaiser before they can get nonemergency care at that facility.

Curtis acknowledged that there is "no expressed state statute, law or decision" that gives the medical staff direct authority "to be at the table or to exercise influence (over) a proposed transfer." However, he said the U.S. Office of Inspector General's divestment order has made the sale process "a public action."

"There needs to be disclosure about what all the potential purchasers are proposing and what the deals are," Curtis said. "Right now, that's being held secret."

The medical staff will use political pressure and persuasion and, if necessary, go to court to guide Tenet's decision, he said.

Curtis asserted that a medical staff recently had success in preventing the sale of a hospital in Orange County to a buyer the physicians didn't believe was qualified.

Curtis also said he will represent Alvarado physicians' requests for Tenet to continue adequate funding for the hospital during the sale process.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune

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THC,

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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