SUTTER: Takes Over Building from MedPartners
Sutter Tracy Community Hospital has taken over management of an adjacent physician office building to prevent a loss of doctors in the wake of the recent dissolution of MedPartners' Mullikin Medical Center-Eaton, the Stockton Record reports. Hospital CEO Gary Rapaport said the arrangement is "a money-losing deal, at least for the first year," but "basically, we've been out of medical-office spaces in the community, so we would have had 15 doctors trying to find a place to practice and no place to go." The hospital will spend at least $150,000 in renovations to convert the building "from a giant single-office complex to a building that holds a variety of independent physician practices." Rapaport added, "We all wanted MedPartners out of Tracy because they weren't managing the business well. And they had expressed the fact that they were either selling the practice to somebody else -- and nobody knew who that would be and nobody had any confidence that they would be better. Or there were rumors MedPartners would just close the doors and walk away." Sutter Gould Medical Foundation convinced three of the 15 doctors in the building to join its physician network; the rest opted out, "even thought the idea of starting up new private practices in today's complex world of managed care is somewhat intimidating," according to tenant Dr. Andris Lazdins (Spence, 6/28).
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