LifePoint Health and Kindred Healthcare announced Tuesday that the joining of their two organizations will yield a new 79-hospital company that will operate in tandem with LifePoint’s network.
Called ScionHealth, the Louisville, Kentucky-based entity will spread across 25 states and include 61 of Kindred’s long-term acute care hospitals alongside 18 of LifePoint’s community hospitals.
ScionHealth will be led by Rob Jay, currently the vice president of integrated operations at LifePoint, and will fill out the rest of its management team from leaders at both organizations.
Meanwhile, the remainder of LifePoint’s operations—more than 65 hospital campuses and a network of physician practices and outpatient centers—will be joined by Kindred’s 25 inpatient rehabilitation facilities, more than 100 acute rehabilitation facilities and two behavioral health facilities, all under the LifePoint name. David Dill will remain in place as its president and CEO, while Kindred CEO Benjamin Breier will depart from the organization.
“As our teams began to examine how best to bring together the operations of LifePoint and Kindred, it became increasingly clear that we had the right mix of talent, services and assets to reorganize into two strong companies to better serve our patients and communities,” Dill said in a statement. “In forming two companies with unique areas of focus, LifePoint Health and ScionHealth can improve access to quality care, create more opportunities for our employees and invest in our communities.”
LifePoint announced its plans to acquire Kindred and invest $1.5 billion into the organizations back in June. That deal is still set to close before the end of the year, at which point LifePoint and ScionHealth will enter transition services arrangements to support the operations of both companies, according to the recent announcement.
The companies will each have separate leadership and boards of directors and expect to be “well capitalized businesses focused on growth and grounded in commitments to outstanding patient care and quality outcomes,” they said. Individual ScionHealth hospitals will continue operating under their existing names and will retain their clinical providers.
“The prospect of launching ScionHealth is exciting for our teams and our communities, and I’m honored to serve as the company’s founding CEO,” Jay said in a statement. “In forming ScionHealth, we selected a cohesive group of community health systems across the LifePoint and Kindred footprint that would benefit from focused attention, resources and investment. We are looking forward to extending the legacies of LifePoint Health and Kindred Healthcare, honoring Kindred’s important corporate leadership role in Louisville, and creating a new platform for growth and innovation in community healthcare.”
LifePoint said back in June that it planned to identify synergies between its community-based hospitals and Kindred’s long-tail care services. It also had planned to pump money toward technology that would increase communities’ access to care services, professional growth among employees and other efforts to improve care delivery.
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Founded in 1985 as Vencor, Louisville-based Kindred’s history includes time as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange and a slew of mergers and acquisitions to grow its service offerings.
The post-acute care company went private in 2018 with its $4.1 billion joint acquisition by Humana; TPG Capital; and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Earlier this year, Humana exercised its right to break off and purchase Kindred at Home, Kindred’s home health services business, for $5.7 billion while simultaneously divesting its share of Kindred’s remaining post-acute care offerings.
Brentwood, Tennessee-based LifePoint Health was similarly taken private in 2018 when it was purchased by Apollo Global Management for $5.6 billion and merged with the private equity firm’s RCCH HealthCare Partners. Apollo said at the time that the merger would create a system with revenues exceeding $8 billion.