University of Toledo officials on Thursday announced they are no longer considering proposals to purchase, lease, or manage the UT Medical Center and will instead focus on stabilizing the former Medical College of Ohio hospital’s finances.
In April the university announced it was requesting bids from parties interested in either purchasing, leasing, or managing the medical center. The university maintains that UTMC has suffered steep financial losses — including a more than $25 million budget deficit — and has become unsustainable.
The move to seek bids was criticized by UTMC supporters, who accused UT officials of keeping the community in the dark about their plans. On Thursday, UT officials said seeking bids to take over UTMC was just one option being considered, adding they’ve also been exploring a partnership with the Toledo Clinic as well as other efficiency and cost-reduction strategies.
“There are a number of challenges ahead, and we can’t lose sight of our primary role as an educational institution; however, we also recognize that our community needs our hospital and we need them to support us by continuing to use our services,” UT interim president Gregory Postel said. “We must increase our patient volume to find a sustainable solution. This will take all of us, working together, to find the best solution.”
Dr. Postel, who has been on the job for roughly two weeks, said he asked individual UT board members to back the decision to indefinitely postpone considerations for another group to purchase, lease, or manage UTMC after talking to his leadership team and other university staff members.
He said challenges faced by the university, as it prepares to welcome back students in August, played a role in the decision, as did a recent influx in federal money that he believes will help offset some of UTMC’s financial burdens. Officials said that more than $10.7 million in CARES Act funding received in June is expected to bring UTMC’s deficit to roughly $13.5 million, with more federal money expected in the coming months.
“It doesn’t completely close the gap, but it helps,” Dr. Postel said. “While it’s not a permanent solution to the problem, it affords us the luxury of time to really drill down on ways to create more substantial sources of revenue.”
University officials announced last month that roughly 40 interested parties — including for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals — made offers about UTMC. College officials have otherwise refused to provide details about bids.
The only for-sure bidder interested in UTMC’s operations was ProMedica, which UTMC supporters blame in large part for UTMC’s financial woes — arguing ProMedica has siphoned medical staff, students, residents, and patients from the medical college through a 2015 affiliation agreement the health-care system inked with the university.
ProMedica had bid to take over the operations of — but not own — the medical center. Tausha Moore, a spokesman for ProMedica, said Thursday in a news release that officials thought their bid provided a local solution to meet the community’s needs while preserving UTMC as a publicly owned hospital.
“We understand and respect that the university has to make business decisions it believes will work best for its organization,” she wrote. “ProMedica will continue to focus on providing extraordinary care at its top-rated facilities and honoring our commitment to the community through a number of much-needed efforts and initiatives.”
On Thursday, UTMC supporters cheered the university’s announcement about indefinitely ending the bid process, as well as a decision earlier this month to postpone transferring UTMC’s orthopedic services to ProMedica.
Dr. Postel said Thursday that decision was made because the UT College of Medicine and Life Sciences’ accreditation is up for review next year, adding he doesn’t believe departments and staff should be transferred until after the college’s programs have been reviewed.
But former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, who is one of the Save UTMC Citizens Group leaders, praised Dr. Postel and said he hopes this is a sign that the interim university president, along with newly selected UT board chairman Alfred Baker, are willing to work with the community in preserving the former medical college.
“I’m still looking forward to meeting with Dr. Postel, I think now more than ever,” Mr. Finkbeiner said. “Since 2019 I’ve had many meetings with men and women who are concerned about this campus and hospital, and I have also been reaching out to potential partners with the campus, so I think it’s important to share some of those ideas moving forward and I hope that will be occurring in the near future.”
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), and state Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), also praised Dr. Postel, with Miss Kaptur describing him in a news release as, “...an interim president who understands the importance of academic medical research,” adding that with him at the helm, along with an expected $21.5 million in CARES funding directed to UTMC, the former medical college has a bright future.
Ms. Fedor added that the university is now headed in the right direction regarding its teaching and research institution. Previously she, as well as other state lawmakers, have pressured Ohio Auditor Keith Faber to conduct a full audit of UTMC’s finances to investigate whether the university’s affiliation agreement with ProMedica has favored the nonprofit, private health-care system over the South Toledo community medical center.
Mr. Faber’s office recently conducted what is termed an agreed-upon procedures audit, where both parties mutually decide the financial scope of the review. The audit, released June 22, provided a broad budgetary overview of both UTMC and the College of Medicine and Life Sciences finances over the past half-decade.
The auditor’s office then “strongly suggested” a performance audit of UTMC’s finances, which the office said was declined by the university, as the roughly six-month procedure would take too long for the university’s desired timeline to sell the former Medical College of Ohio hospital.
With that no longer on the table, Ms. Fedor said now there’s more time to perform a more extensive audit. She spoke to the auditor on Thursday and is very hopeful about moving forward.
“I’m very pleased with the University of Toledo’s interim president and board, and I think their announcement [to halt the bid process] was a reasonable move considering we have a lot of financial questions with the audit that was done and now we have an opportunity to get those answers.”
When asked by The Blade late Thursday if UT was willing to act upon Mr. Faber’s suggestion to initiative a performance audit of UTMC finances, spokesman Meghan Cunningham said in an email:
“UToledo worked closely with the state auditor on the agreed upon procedures audit. Had there been any material findings, the University would have asked the auditor to pursue a more thorough review.”
First Published July 16, 2020, 1:13 p.m.
