Main Line Health aims to take on Crozer Health’s OB/GYN practices
The move is happening as Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital hang on by a thread during owner Prospect Medical Holdings’ bankruptcy.
Main Line Heath is working on a plan to take on bankrupt Crozer Health’s women’s health practices and their patients, the nonprofit health system said Friday.
During a bankruptcy hearing Thursday, a lawyer for Crozer’s for-profit owner, Prospect Medical Holdings, said the OB/GYN practices would be transitioned to a different system, but did not identify it.
“We want to expand our reach to meet a critical need for continued OB/GYN services in the region — ensuring patients experience a seamless transition in care with our trusted clinicians and care teams,“ Main Line said in a statement.
Few details were immediately available. It’s not clear if Main Line is paying for the practices, whether Crozer clinicians will become Main Line employees, or if Main Line will assume responsibility for the medical residents training at Crozer.
Crozer has 12 residents specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, according to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
Main Line’s Lankenau Medical Center has 17 OB/GYN residents, the council directory indicates.
Local officials and other health systems have been scrambling to find a long-term solution for Crozer, which could close later this month if a new owner does not emerge for a health system that is the largest in Delaware County.
A Crozer physician directory shows that Crozer has women’s health offices in Upland, Media, Glen Mills, Springfield, Broomall, and Ridley Park. Those offices have 18 clinicians, including three nurse practitioners.
Main Line’s statement did not specify how the Crozer clinicians would be distributed among Main Line’s facilities.
Main Line had capacity to deliver more babies at three hospitals that are relatively close to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, in Upland, where Crozer provided labor and delivery services, state data shows.
The obstetrics occupancy rates were 41% at Lankenau Medical Center, 66% at Bryn Mawr Hospital, and 48% at Riddle Hospital, according to Pennsylvania department of health data for 2023, the most recent available.
A potential problem for some Delaware County residents is that Main Line Health does not have a contract with UnitedHealthcare’s Medicaid plan in Pennsylvania. United Healthcare Community plan insured 10,300 individuals in Delaware County in February. About one-third of births in Pennsylvania are covered through government-funded Medicaid plans.
In addition to the assumption of Crozer’s labor and delivery services, Main Line is preparing for an increased number of patients in primary care, specialty care, urgent care, and other services.
Riddle’s emergency medical services is participating in county meetings to ensure no disruption of those services throughout the county. Crozer’s ambulance service covers a large part of the county, and its future is unclear.
As part of the restructuring announced Thursday in court, Penn Medicine is taking over Crozer’s medical offices in Broomall and Glen Mills. It plans to assume the leases at those facilities. In connection with that deal, it is paying Crozer $5 million, mostly a donation. That money helped forestall the closure of Crozer-Chester and Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park for a week.
Separately, Crozer told nurses Friday that it plans to close the home care and hospice business that operates out of Taylor by June 10, according to the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, a labor union. About 25 nurses will lose their jobs when the units close, the union said.
Crozer CEO Tony Esposito confirmed the plan.
A lawyer for California-based Prospect called the planned reductions in services at Crozer “much less of a hatchet than it would be if we were just closing and having to do this abruptly.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to add information about home care and hospice operations.