Sale of Weiss, West Suburban hospitals moves ahead despite bankruptcy – Chicago Tribune

The owner of Weiss and West Suburban hospitals has reached an agreement to proceed with the sale of the hospitals, despite recently filing for bankruptcy.

California-based Pipeline Health has reached an agreement with Resilience Healthcare and Ramco Healthcare Holdings that will see Resilience take over the hospital operations on Dec. 2, Pipeline announced Wednesday. That deal is still subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The second phase of the sale, which is expected to close in the coming months, involves Ramco acquiring real estate related to the facilities.

Weiss Memorial in Uptown Chicago and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park employ more than 1,400 people and have more than 450 hospital beds, according to court documents.

The deal comes after Pipeline, which has owned the hospitals since 2019, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, putting a future sale in question. The first state council approved the sale to Resilience for $92 million in June, and the deal was originally set to close as early as August 30.

It’s also consecutive years of twists and turns over the fates of Weiss Memorial and West Suburban, as well as animosity toward their owner, Pipeline, which is a for-profit company.

The pipeline drew ire from members and community leaders shortly after it purchased two hospitals and Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park. Originally a pipeline said he would be back three objects, but then said it would close Westlake just weeks after taking ownership, prompting fears that he had similar plans for Weiss and West Suburban.

Those were the worries then fired up when Pipeline agreed to sell the Weiss parking lot to a developer who planned build apartments on the website.

As part of the sale, Resilience Pipeline plans to use $12 million from the sale of the Weiss parking lot to Resilience to reinvest in the hospital.

Resilience is a newly formed for-profit company led by Manoj Prasad, who originally trained as a doctor but has spent most of his career helping to grow medical facilities, he said.

Prasad said he first plans to stem the financial bleeding at hospitals and hopes to eventually bring new services to hospitals and expand and improve others. He believes hospitals could save millions of dollars a month by improving revenue collection systems and electronic medical records, among other things. Patients from government programs like Medicaid will continue to be welcome at hospitals, he said.

New Jersey-based businessman Reddy Ratnakar Patlola is Resilience’s financial partner and will invest in the acquisition and operations. Patlola’s company, Ramco Healthcare Holdings, will own the land on which the hospitals are located, while Resilience has long-term leases with Patlola.

Pipeline said it filed for bankruptcy after facing rising labor and supply costs, declining revenue and delayed payouts for some insurance plans. For the 12 months to August 2022, Weiss and West Suburban had a combined net loss of $69.7 million.