Steward Health Care delays hospital sales hearing again

Steward Health Care said late Wednesday night that it has again postponed the sales hearing for its hospitals in Massachusetts. The hearing, which was scheduled to take place Friday, has been delayed until Aug. 22, the company announced in a U.S. bankruptcy court filing.

Dallas-based Steward has said that it has bids for five hospitals in Massachusetts but has not yet revealed the identities of its suitors or the details of offers on the table. The hospitals up for sale are Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Morton Hospital in Taunton and Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill and Methuen.

The company has already received court approval to close Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.

The latest in a parade of delays comes the same week that the bankrupt company announced it has reached an agreement to sell its physicians network to Rural Healthcare Group, a subsidiary of a New York private equity firm, for $245 million in cash. That deal is still up for court approval at a hearing this Friday at 10 a.m., the filing says.

The Massachusetts state government struck a deal with Steward to provide $30 million in advance Medicaid payments to keep hospitals here afloat through August, but officials did not answer questions this week about whether any payments have been or will be made under the terms of that agreement. Officials had called for Steward to enter into acquisition agreements for the Massachusetts hospitals by Aug. 9 and for bankruptcy court approval of sales by Aug. 15.

As those deadlines pass, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services said Monday that it was disappointed that asset purchase agreements for the remaining five for-sale hospitals had not been signed.

Also Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an objection related to Steward's original plan to seek court approval to sell Stewardship Health and a number of its hospitals in three states at the now-delayed hearing this Friday.

The federal government "objects to any Proposed Sales to the extent such sales seek to transfer the Debtors’ Medicare Part A Provider Agreements in violation of applicable federal law," the filing said. The DOJ suggested that it filed the objection and reservation of its rights in part because Steward has not yet disclosed the identities of the companies bidding on hospitals that it expects to sell.

The court-approved procedures that Steward must follow during its bankruptcy off-selling process allow that sale hearings can be "adjourned or rescheduled" by the bankruptcy court or by Steward.

With reporting from Colin A. Young of State House News Service.