An Idaho radiology provider plans to shutter operations if it can’t find a buyer by March 29.
Multispecialty group Saltzer Health recently shared the news in an announcement posted to its website. Founded in 1961, the organization was acquired by Salt Lake City, Utah-based hospital giant Intermountain Healthcare in 2020. However, the physician group has grappled with “ongoing financial and economic challenges” in recent years, leading to the “difficult decision” to close or cease operations.
“Like many health systems across the country, Saltzer has faced significant financial pressures as the rising cost of providing care, driven by inflation, has increased since the pandemic,” the organization said in its announcement. “Saltzer leaders say vital contracts and other market relationships did not progress as had been hoped for, making it financially challenging.”
At the time of the 2020 sale, Saltzer employed about 80 physicians and other providers, servicing 102,000 patients across eight locations in Canyon and Ada counties. The group also opened the “world class” Saltzer Health Medical Imaging Center in Meridian, Idaho, in 2021. Altogether, the organization employs about two-dozen radiologists across subspecialties including nuclear medicine, interventional care, and women’s imaging, according to its website. Other specialties delivered by Saltzer include OB-GYN, family and internal medicine, pediatrics, otolaryngology, cardiology, urgent care, gastroenterology and nephrology.
Leaders are currently in active negotiations with healthcare companies interested in purchasing parts of its operations to preserve access. They remain “optimistic” that a sale could be reached and will offer providers the chance to stay with the new organization.
“Saltzer will work closely with caregivers and their patients who receive care at Saltzer during this transition to help with continuity of care,” according to the announcement.
Saltzer Health has changed hands several times in recent years and expanded following each deal, Healthcare Dive noted Monday. Change Healthcare bought it back in 2017 when a merger with St. Luke’s Health fell through, and development firm Ball Ventures Ahlquist purchased it two years later before selling to Intermountain. Last year, Saltzer attempted to boost flagging finances by discontinuing walk-in urgent care at most clinics and laying off 67 employees, the report noted.
Intermountain—which has 33 hospitals and employs 3,800 physicians and advanced practice providers—issued a brief statement to local media. It contended that “unforeseen changes in our geographic area and inflation have created conditions that have made running our healthcare operations unsustainable.”
Physicians criticized the abrupt announcement.
“We've all been blindsided by this and I think the biggest frustration is not knowing what our future holds,” Elaine Davidson, MD, associate director of family health, told Idaho News 6.
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.