Becker's Hospital Review

13 CFO / FINANCE Mayo Clinic gets $60M from Minnesota philanthropist By Alia Paavola M ayo Clinic received a $60 million donation from philanthropist Helene Houle of St. Paul, Minn., to sup- port healthcare delivery in Minnesota, the Rochester, Minn.-based system said March 15. In recognition of the gift, Mayo will name a patient tower at Mayo Clinic Hospital, Saint Marys Campus in Rochester after Ms. Houle's late husband, John Nasseff. The John Nasseff Tower is 11 stories, spans 430,000 square feet and houses 162 patient beds. Mr. Nasseff and Ms. Houle have made several gifts to the health system over the years after their youngest son, Arthur Nasseff, had life-saving surgery at St. Marys Hospital in the 1960s. "John Nasseff and Helene Houle have had a significant impact on Mayo Clinic over the decades of their support," said Mayo President and CEO Gianrico Farrugia, MD. "We are incredibly grateful to Ms. Houle for this generous gift, and we cannot think of a more fitting way to honor Mr. Nasseff." n Trinity buys majority stake in Premier Health By Ayla Ellison T rinity Health, a 92-hospital system based in Livonia, Mich., acquired a majority ownership stake in Premier Health, a Baton Rouge, La.- based operator of urgent care clinics. Under the partnership, Premier will operate about 20 existing Trinity Health urgent care centers. Premier currently operates more than 70 urgent care centers, and it will double the number of clinics it operates across several states over the next few years. The ur- gent care centers will be connected with Trinity and other local health systems. "Through this partnership, urgent care services will be more convenient and accessible to better meet people's needs," Dan Roth, MD, executive vice presi- dent and chief clinical officer of Trinity Health, said in a March 10 news release. "Patients will benefit from a seamless, coordinated care experience between ur- gent care, primary care and other services within the communities we serve together." n Billionaire unloads $42M of CHS shares By Ayla Ellison C hinese investor Tianqiao Chen and his group of companies have a 4.97 percent stake in Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Sys- tems after selling more than 2.8 million shares of the company, according to filings Securities and Ex- change Commission filings. Mr. Chen and his Shanda Group company affiliates sold more than 4.5 million shares of CHS from March 4-10 for between $8.70 and $9.83, bringing in a to- tal of $41.95 million. The move comes after he sold more than 16 million shares of CHS between Nov. 10 and Jan. 15. Mr. Chen, a pioneer in China's online gaming indus- try, began buying up shares of CHS in 2016. The last public comment the investor made about CHS was in 2018, when Shanda Group said it had a "good re- lationship" with CHS and supported the company's strategy and management team. CHS, which operates 85 hospitals in 16 states, ended the fourth quarter of last year with net income of $311 million on revenue of $3.1 billion, compared to a net loss of $373 million on revenues of $3.3 billion in the same period a year earlier. n Chicago safety-net hospitals could lose $1.8B by 2024 By Katie Adams S afety-net hospitals in Chicago are projected to lose at least $1.76 billion by 2024, according to a study commissioned by the Health Care Council of Chicago. The study, published in March, looked at seven hospitals on Chicago's South Side and six on its West Side, both areas that house significantly higher proportions of Black and Latinx residents than the rest of the city. The authors predicted the South Side hospitals would lose $1.34 billion by 2024, and the West Side hospitals would lose $421 million by 2024. They said the projected losses are con- servative estimates, as their calculations are based on 2018 vol- ume and cost data and do not take into account the pandemic or the worsening recession. Chicago safety-net hospitals make far less money than they spend. This can be attributed to low reimbursement rates from the government and insurers, as well as Illinois private Medic- aid insurers' failure to pay hospitals in a timely manner or at all, according to the study. Additionally, the city's safety-net hospitals can't afford to invest in large aging facilities or hire more specialists, so patients are often forced to go to bigger hospitals, David Smith, the study's lead author, told WBEZ March 2. n

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