The standoff over staff at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Ind., and executives at parent company Community Health Systems Inc. (CHS) provides a window into how CHS, once the largest for-profit hospital chain in the U.S., has allowed facilities to languish, possibly compromising care and destroying investor value in the process, according to a commentary in Bloomberg Businessweek. CHS Chief Executive Officer Wayne Smith presided over a decade-long acquisition binge that saddled CHS with total debt of almost eight times its earnings and a network of underperforming facilities. The company lost $2 billion in the past six quarters, during which doctors from Key West to Spokane have accused the chain of pinching pennies and regulators have fined it for overcharging Medicare. Says Indiana Republican Representative Jim Banks, who has sided with the Fort Wayne doctors: “It’s buy, squeeze, and repeat.”
