Homer Alaska - Business

"Our commitment is to keep all the employees with their current tenure and compensation," Dan Moen, LHP's CEO, said. "And our goal, really, is to grow the number of employees."

More employees would come from increased local services, such as a cancer treatment center and a cardiac lab, that LHP's capital would allow CPH to develop, according to Moen.

In a telephone interview with the Peninsula Clarion last week, Moen stressed little would change on a day-to-day basis if LHP were to partner with the hospital, currently borough-owned. The partnership has the backing of CPH's governing board, but it still needs Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly approval.

"The community is not selling the hospital. While we put up the majority of the equity, control remains with the local joint venture board," Moen said. "The hospital and its historic mission will continue as a locally controlled facility. We will keep all employees, with the same local management in place. We plan to take care of patients in a high-standing manner, including those who can't pay."

Texas-based LHP, formerly Triad Hospitals, currently has three joint venture partnerships.

Moen said they are truly equal partnerships.

"I can tell you with a lot of confidence that we never had an issue that we couldn't resolve," Moen said. "If they (the local board) had a proposal we didn't agree with or vice versa, we collaboratively resolved it one way or the other."

LHP currently has partnerships with three hospitals: Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello, Idaho; Wilson N. Jones Medical Center in Sherman, Texas; and Hackensack University Medical Center North at Pascack Valley in Westwod, N.J.

A few years ago, Portneuf Medical Center, then a county-run facility, was looking to form a partnership with an organization that could free up the hospital's decision-making as well as provide an influx of capital to build a new hospital.

Portneuf had just opened a new heart and vascular facility in 2005.

After its local hospital board went through a vetting period, much like the one just completed by CPGH Inc., the nonprofit that governs CPH, Portneuf's leadership chose, in 2009, to enter into a whole hospital joint venture agreement with LHP.

LHP now owns 77 percent of the hospital while a nonprofit Portneuf Health Care Foundation Inc. owns the rest.

Shaun Menchaca, the president of the Portneuf nonprofit, said the partnership with LHP has worked out well thus far.

"It's a very positive partnership." Menchaca said. "They realize that if they treat the partner good and the community good, good things will happen."

LHP is providing the capital necessary to build a brand new hospital.

Portneuf Medical Center's chief executive officer, Norman Stephens, the equivalent of Ryan Smith's role at CPH, said community members' and hospital staffers' opinions of the LHP partnership have improved over time.

"It's gotten better because there was initially some suspicion of whether they'd come in and do program cuts," Stephens said. "Now, a year and a half into it, people are really pleased because LHP hasn't done anything draconian."

"It doesn't happen overnight. It's like a good marriage: You have to work on it," Moen said.

Moen called concerns that LHP would sell CPH for a quick profit "unfounded."

Moen did not recall the situation with Douglas Community Medical Center, in Roseburg, Ore., which closed in 2000 under Triad's ownership.

The Eugene Register-Guard newspaper reported in 2003 that the "hospital's closure devastated Roseburg."

Moen was Triad's executive vice president for development. Triad had 54 partnerships when Community Health Systems bought the $6 billion company in 2007.

Douglas closed because it could not compete with a second health care facility in town, the Register-Guard reported.

"We can't sell the hospital without partner approval. All decisions are made by the joint venture board," Moen said last week. "We're in this for the long run."

Moen also said LHP prides itself on working closely with doctors, holding monthly roundtable discussions to hear their concerns and comments.

"If we do anything well, we think it's how we work with the doctors," Moen said. "We get them involved with the governance structure and in the decision making."

Local physicians have previously expressed skepticism over any collaboration with an outside partner.

LHP's financial backing comes from CCMP Capital Advisors, LLC, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase, and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

Andrew Waite is a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion.