A bruising $85 million whistle-blower settlement for Halifax Health won’t change its mission to remain a public hospital, its board chairman says.
John Johnson, chairman of the Halifax Health Board of Commissioners, told a supportive crowd that Volusia and Flagler Counties need a community hospital and don’t need to consider a sale or merger with a larger, for-profit or non-profit hospital chain, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.
Halifax remains one of the state's few publicly owned hospitals, at a time when mergers and consolidations are more the norm. Over the past several years, non-profits and for-profit hospital companies across the country have been merging, or at the very least entering into joint-operating partnerships that allow them to increase buying power and save costs.
In February, Halifax Health reached a record-setting settlementwith a former hospital administrator and the U.S. Department of Justice, over claims the hospital maintained illegal contracts with doctors and for filing false Medicare claims.
Instead of a sale, open job positions will remain vacant and equipment and other purchases have been delayed to help pay for the settlement, Hospital CEO Jeff Feasel said. The hospital, which faces a second phase in a related trial in July, already has accrued $22 million in legal fees, according to the News-Journal.