Sansum to Be Acquired by Sutter Health - The Santa Barbara Independent
#SantaBarbara County’s #Sansum #Medical #Clinic has embarked on exclusive negotiations to “enter into a strategic partnership” with #Sutter #Health, a major not-for-profit health-care enterprise based in Northern California.
In plainer language, Sutter would become Sansum’s new owner, though Sansum would continue to manage itself.
Sutter Health has 24 acute care hospitals, 33 walk-in surgery centers, and a host of clinics that combined employ 52,000 people and take in $14 billion a year in total revenues.
The deal may help Sansum bring on more primary care doctors: Because Sutter operates so many hospitals, they use medical residents. Once they finish their medical residencies they should add significantly to the pool of potential applicants for primary care vacancies — now in the double digits — that have proven hard for Sansum to fill.
With the availability of the additional resources Sutter can bring to bear Sansum patients may not wait so long to get appointments to be seen. Sutter has implemented online scheduling, and Sutter’s heft should help when wrangling with recalcitrant insurance providers who balk at paying the bills of Sansum clients.
Barring any unforeseen opposition from the state Attorney General, the deal could be finalized within six months.
The name of the operation would change to reflect Sutter’s new ownership as well as Sansum’s underlying identity
https://www.independent.com/2023/05/05/sansum-to-be-acquired-by-sutter-health/