Hospital giant CHI Health terminates 75-year partnership with local radiology practice
Hospital giant CHI Health has terminated a 75-year partnership with one local radiology practice, the group announced recently.
Beginning with the close of business June 16, Saint Elizabeth Medical Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, and its parent company severed ties with Advanced Medical Imaging, based in the same city. AMI and its affiliates will no longer provide imaging services for CHI Health, which is switching to another group based in Omaha.
“The dissolution of this partnership will not impact the high-quality, in-network patient care AMI provides to patients,” the practice said in a statement. “AMI remains committed to serving Lincoln and the surrounding communities and to providing the highest quality medical imaging and care for patients at the lowest possible cost.”
A representative with the hospital group said there was no formal contract between the two parties. CHI Health gave its longtime partner a 90-day notice and Advanced Medical Imaging opted to end things immediately, he alleged. The hospital is now transitioning to Radiology Consultants of the Midwest, which specializes in hospital-based imaging and will employ Lincoln rads to serve hospital and local cardiovascular patients.
"We're excited about our new partnership with RadCon and the expertise they bring to CHI Health St. Elizabeth and Nebraska Heart," hospital President Derek Vance told the Lincoln Journal Star.
Advanced Medical Imaging bills itself as one of Nebraska’s largest independently owned radiology groups, with more than 170 employees. CHI Health, meanwhile, is a faith-based nonprofit headquartered in Omaha and operating 14 hospitals. Its parent company, Catholic Health Initiatives, merged with Dignity Health in 2019 to form CommonSpirit Health. Its new partner, RadCon, already works with CHI Health in Omaha and is one of the Cornhusker State’s oldest, founded back in 1931, according to its website.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.