Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne says the state won’t be sitting down with officials from Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which owns Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, and LCMC Health, which owns Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, to discuss the possibility of partnering with them on the management of two north Louisiana charity hospitals.
On Dec. 1, the CEOs of FMOLHS and LMC sent a letter to Gov. John Bel Edwards urging him to meet with them and discuss a possible collaboration over the management of the Shreveport and Monroe hospitals. The letter came as the state is wrapping up a months-long negotiation with New Orleans-based Ochsner to take over management of the two facilities.
FMOLHS provides indigent and Medicaid care through its graduate medical education program at OLOL in Baton Rouge, while LMC does the same in New Orleans at University Medical Center.
Dardenne says though the state’s deal with Ochsner isn’t finalized yet, “we’re far along with our discussions and the first we heard that they were interested was when this letter (dated Dec. 1) arrived.”
He says the state did not formally reply to the letter in writing, but that the governor’s executive counsel, Matthew Block, called both CEOs to explain the state’s position.
For months, the state has been at odds with BRF, the firm currently managing the two north Louisiana hospitals. In September, it notified BRF that the firm was in breach of contract with the state. To resolve the situation without litigation, BRF indicated it would be willing to work with Ochsner and gradually hand over its management contract to the New Orleans-based healthcare giant, which is why the state is working with Ochsner instead of another one of its partner hospitals like OLOL, Dardenne says.
“BRF has said it would like to avoid a lengthy legal battle and it is willing to work with Ochsner so that is why we have been negotiating with them,” Dardenne says.
Dardenne says the agreements worked out by the state under former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration require that the state follow such provisions in the event it wants to get out of a deal with a hospital management firm. Dardenne says the agreements are problematic.
“But that’s the hand we were dealt so that’s why we have to do things this way,” he says.
The LSU Board of Supervisors, which meets today in New Orleans, won’t be voting on the agreement yet because it is not finalized, Dardenne says. But he says the state hopes to have a nonbinding letter of intent with BRF completed soon.
“It’s not a contract so it won’t bind any party,” he says. “But it will express the intent of (LSU, Ochsner and the state) to enter into an agreement in the future.”
—Stephanie Riegel
