ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - With less than a month before its doors close forever, Atlanta Medical Center’s (AMC) closing is being called an “intentional failure” by some staff and community leaders.

But Wellstar, the not-for-profit health system that owns AMC, continues arguing the claims are unfounded.

An Atlanta News First Investigation found advocates have long accused Wellstar of not doing enough to help AMC thrive.

Susie Johnson, an AMC medical technologist, called the hospital’s closing “mean-spirited” and “underhanded.” She has been skeptical of Wellstar’s ownership of AMC since it began six years ago.

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Wellstar continues maintaining the closure was not an easy decision:

“We certainly understand the sense of loss shared by the community and long-time AMC team members, but these claims are unfounded. Wellstar is proud to have invested heavily in Atlanta Medical Center since purchasing the hospital in 2016. We pursued a number of investment and growth strategies for AMC, including substantial and ongoing capital improvements, hiring, recruiting and retaining health professionals like physicians and nurses, investments in a state-of-the-art IT system and a new electronic health record system. Closing the hospital was never the outcome we wanted. When our own efforts to improve the outlook of these hospitals alone did not succeed, we hired a nationally recognized firm to help us run a nationwide search for a partner or a buyer. No state, local or national health system saw a path forward at AMC, and no other funding sources came forward. While we are deeply disappointed that another solution did not emerge, Wellstar worked long and hard to find one.”
Wellstar

A letter obtained by Atlanta News First Investigates revealed Wellstar’s plan to not just close Atlanta Medical Center but also merge its name with its Kennestone Hospital. That letter was dated Aug. 31, 2022, the same day Wellstar announced AMC’s closing, a move which will eventually leave the city of Atlanta with a single Level 1 trauma center.

Wellstar also had filed paperwork in June with the Georgia Department of Community Health to change the name to Kennestone Regional Medical Center.

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Workers claim significant upgrades and resources barely trickled into AMC over the years. Stakeholders said they demanded long-term service strategies that never came. Wellstar disputes those claims, explaining it spent $350 million in improvements:

Back in 2016, Tenant Healthcare owned five area hospitals, including AMC. Tenant sold all of them in a bundle deal to Wellstar, meaning Wellstar inherited the already financially struggling AMC, a facility that primarily served low-income families.

“They didn’t really want us,” Johnson said.

However, Wellstar said it always intended to identify a path forward:

“When Wellstar purchased AMC, we were hopeful that we could transform the hospital and build a sustainable solution to serve the community. However, since 2016, AMC has faced unique and multi-faceted challenges – including aging buildings, low utilization with occupancy at only half of the licensed beds, lack of public support while caring for our city’s most vulnerable population and a reactive care model. These challenges are in addition to the pandemic and its financial and inflationary consequences, which could not have been predicted in 2016.
“Some buildings on the AMC campus are over 100 years old, with mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems at the end of their useful life. The current facilities are not equipped to handle the latest care technologies without being demolished and rebuilt, at an estimated cost of $650 million to $1 billion.
“AMC has also long served the most vulnerable patients in our city without public financial support. We have been proud to be part of this critically important work, but without additional funding, we could not sustain operations in combination with the aged infrastructure at AMC.”
Wellstar

Members of Wellstar AMC’s community advisory board seemingly felt the opposite. Atlanta News First Investigates obtained a copy of a letter sent last year from the board to Wellstar trustees.

The not-for-profit health system argues it did thorough search for help. When Atlanta News First Investigates asked Wellstar about efforts made to have the public-private partnerships it previously committed finding, the company sent us this statement:

“In February 2020, Wellstar publicly announced a formal search for a partner or buyer to preserve access to inpatient care at AMC. Through that exhaustive search, we connected with healthcare organizations locally, regionally and nationally. More than a dozen potential partners expressed interest, but ultimately, after learning more details about the hospital’s condition and finances, none were interested in a partnership. We also discussed the future of AMC with government officials and community leaders in search of additional funding to keep AMC open, but no funding was made available to us, so we were left without other options.
“This was never the decision we wanted to make, but we were left without a choice after multiple attempts to secure funding or partnerships failed to produce a solution for AMC. Despite this difficult outcome, Wellstar continues to be the largest provider of uncompensated care in Georgia, and we are proud to serve diverse communities across the region. We will continue to be there for those who need us for primary and specialized care, and through our critical role in the statewide collaborative trauma network.”
Wellstar

Metro Atlanta healthcare economist Bill Custer calls not-for-profit hospitals “a legal construct” and are designed to provide “services at highest quality, lowest cost.”

Custer said Medicare and private insurers require hospitals to offer more treatment than ever before. As such, the medical market has more not-for-profits focused on profits.

“There’s been a variety of attempts to try to give not-for-profit hospitals incentives or regulations that directs them more toward fulfilling that community mission,” Custer said.

In fact, a new study from Johns Hopkins University recommends just that. Researchers collected data on every U.S. not-for-profit hospital, and also examined private hospitals and government-run hospitals.

The results revealed “many government and not-for-profit hospitals’ charity care provision was not aligned with their charity care obligations arising from their favorable tax treatment.”

According to the latest charity care reports, AMC provided $62 million in charity care in 2020.

Due to tax exemptions, another requirement for not-for-profit hospitals is a Community Health Needs Assessment Report. AMC’s own assessment report identified six priority issues for Atlanta, the first being “access to health care.” The remaining priorities were behavioral health, food access and chronic disease management, housing, pediatric and women’s health.

Since “access to healthcare” was the top priority, advocates feel AMC’s closure only adds insult to injury.

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