Shot Down in Denver
Nashville-based Hospital Corporation of America's bid to buy a seven not-for-profit hospitals in Denver has been rebuffed. Incidentally, there is a great story of corporate greed, arrogance, shifty legal maneuvers and rough play in the history of Hospital Corporation of America in the Denver market, should any enterprising journalist wish to dig through the Denver newspaper archives, interview the players, and write it. The story involves physician-owned Precedent Health Partners, a hospital that failed to survive the harsh tactics of the previous incarnation of the Nashville for-profit hospital company then known as Columbia-HCA.

It's a story Nashvillians have never been told, though the Denver Business Journal and other Denver media covered the battle at length. One story, from the DBJ in September 1998, gives a glimpse of how HCA operated back then:

Precedent Health Partners, the physician-owned organization that has struggled to compete with corporate hospital giant Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. and its Denver partner HealthOne, has been blindsided by a $477,618 judgment obtained by Columbia-HealthOne in Denver District Court. According to a legal brief filed Sept. 16, Precedent's physicians and attorneys reacted with "surprise and disbelief" after learning Columbia-HealthOne's attorney's began filing documents with Denver County District Court earlier this year. The brief states that Precedent learned of the judgment, obtained by Columbia's attorneys at Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Strickland, when a notice of the award was published in The Denver Business Journal. According to the default judgment, because Precedent's attorneys didn't show up in court or respond to motions filed by Columbia, Precedent must repay $477,618 its physicians borrowed from Columbia Rose Medical Center during 1996 and 1997. However, Precedent claims it never knew about Columbia's legal maneuvers to obtain the judgment and it wants an opportunity to defend itself in court.

Hmmm. I wonder. It couldn't be that today's decision rebuffing HCA's Denver buyout is payback from the Denver medical community for Columbia-HCA running Precedent out of business, could it?