BUSINESSTroubled times for Tenet: Company's future in doubtThe nation's second largest hospital chain is in deep debt and deep trouble. Will it survive? And will physicians get hurt if it doesn't?By Katherine Vogt, AMNews staff. April 19, 2004. It has been a year and a half since a cloud of trouble formed over Tenet Healthcare Corp., and the storm hasn't let up yet. The old adage must be right: When it rains, it pours. It's been a veritable deluge. With $4 billion in debt, a dwindling cash position and massive potential legal liability from government investigations and lawsuits, some critics say Tenet is in danger of drowning in its problems. At the very least, they predict Tenet will have to dissolve into a new form to emerge from its woes. But the nation's second-largest for-profit hospital company has taken some drastic measures to reposition itself for survival and insists that it is now on stronger footing. With a major operations restructuring effort and management overhaul, the company sees its problems as "fixable" and hopes that investors will, too, as it tries to recover from an ocean of legal and financial setbacks. Observers are divided about whether Tenet can keep itself from going under, though most agree some changes at the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company have been necessary. Some hold the company out as an example of what's wrong with for-profit hospitals, while others say Tenet simply got burned by its previous leadership and policies. Drawing comparisons with other hospital giants who have teetered on the edge of disaster -- notably HCA Inc., the No. 1 for-profit chain -- they have looked at Tenet's current position as well as its history and made predictions about its future ranging from bleak to bright. [...]Full text of AMNews content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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