A year and a half after a for-profit hospital system bought financially struggling nonprofit Mercy Hospital and renamed it Regional Hospital of Scranton, it will no longer provide a rent-free location for a "safety net" clinic.
The Wright Center for Primary Care-Scranton announced Friday that it will evaluate the feasibility of continuing to operate at 640 Madison Ave. after Commonwealth Health, the hospital system that owns Regional Hospital, announced plans to change the long-standing partnership that has helped provide health care services to area residents regardless of their ability to pay.
As of Tuesday , the Wright Center for Primary Care-Scranton will begin leasing the property from Commonwealth Health. Brian Ebersole, education and community relevance leader at the Wright Center for Graduate Education, which operates the primary care clinic, said conservative estimates for extra expenses are $200,000 annually.
While the Wright Center signed a yearlong lease to stay at the current location, leadership with the clinic will decide in the spring whether to continue there. It treats an estimated 5,500 patient visits at the facility each year.
"As a not-for-profit, the Wright Center must be mindful to best steward its resources and maintain financial viability of all of our clinical operations," said Linda Thomas-Hemak, M.D., Wright Center CEO and president. "We favor collaborative community partnerships that reduce duplicated services and create value and sustainability in a mutually beneficial, patient-centered manner."
For more than two decades, the Wright Center has trained medical residents in the clinic on Madison Avenue through an affiliation agreement for graduate medical education. The agreement continued with Commonwealth Health when it bought Mercy Hospital in 2011.
Mr. Ebersole said discussions related to changing the agreement have occurred during the last six months, which led to plans for a transition to begin in September, although it didn't happen. He said follow-up conversations with Commonwealth Health continued in October with plans for a transition in spring 2013.
However, the Wright Center learned about six weeks ago of the hospital system's plans to make the lease agreement for January.
James P. McGuire, a spokesman for Commonwealth Health, provided a statement on behalf of the hospital system late Friday but didn't discuss additional details. He said patients will continue to have access to health care services at the facility provided by the Wright Center.
"Commonwealth Health has a long-standing relationship with the clinics and residency programs of the Wright Center, including substantial financial support for the training of primary care physicians through the Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education," the statement said. "We are committed to the development of new physicians to serve the future health care needs of Northeastern Pennsylvania."
At the Madison Avenue location in Scranton, the Wright Center also owns and operates an infectious disease clinic for residents of a seven-county area. Mr. Ebersole said the clinic will continue to operate in that location.
In Scranton, the Wright Center also works with other "safety net" providers, including Scranton Primary Health Care Center and Maternal & Family Health Services.
Contact the writer: rward@timesshamrock.com, @rwardTT on Twitter.