Crozer Health since Prospect acquired it in 2016: A timeline

Crozer Health’s years of financial turmoil have prompted an unprecedented lawsuit as Pennsylvania’s attorney general seeks to take control of the financially beleaguered health system.

Delaware County’s largest health-care provider has been under for-profit ownership since 2016. In that time, two of Crozer’s four hospitals have closed, and the system has endured numerous rounds of layoffs. State hospital inspectors get called to Crozer facilities for safety problems and complaints almost twice as often as to other area hospitals.

Efforts to find a new owner for the health system have not been successful. Crozer is currently owned by Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., a for-profit company based in Los Angeles.

Crozer operates Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, and outpatient centers in Broomall and Glen Mills. It also owns Springfield Hospital in Springfield Township and Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, but neither offer acute inpatient services.

Here’s a timeline of key events at Crozer since Prospect took over.

July 2016: Prospect Medical Holdings Inc, a private-equity-backed firm from Los Angeles, completed the acquisition of the nonprofit Crozer Keystone Health System in a deal valued at $300 million. Most of that money went to pay off Crozer liabilities.

February 2017: Crozer opened a 52-bed inpatient detoxification and drug rehabilitation unit at Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

April 2019: Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Prospect’s credit rating, citing Prospect’s significantly higher debt load since 2018, when it borrowed $440 million to pay a dividend to the private equity funds that controlled Prospect.

July 2019: Prospect sold 14 hospitals and two psychiatric facilities in three states, including those in Pennsylvania, for $1.55 billion in a deal that required the hospitals to pay rent on buildings they had previously owned. Much of the money from the sale was used to repay debt taken on to pay, among other things, the 2018 dividend.

February 2020: Prospect named Peter Adamo chief executive of Crozer. Adamo replaced Sharif Omar, who had been CEO for just 15 months.

October 2021: Prospect put Crozer and other East Coast hospitals in Connecticut and Rhode Island up for sale.

January 2022: Crozer closed the maternity and neonatal intensive-care units at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill. Citing staffing shortages, Crozer closed Springfield Hospital’s emergency department.

February 2022: ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest health system, struck a preliminary agreement to acquire Crozer, pending full due diligence.

March 2022: Crozer announced plans to “temporarily suspend” intensive-care and surgical services at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill by the end of May.

August 2022: ChristianaCare ended talks on the potential acquisition of Crozer. Prospect said Crozer would be converted back into a nonprofit.

September 2022: Crozer said Delaware County Memorial Hospital would end acute-care services and become an inpatient behavioral health facility.

November 2022: The state department of health ordered Crozer to close the emergency department at Delaware County Memorial, because the hospital did not have the staff to offer diagnostic imaging services. That effectively closed the hospital as an acute-care facility.

February 2023: Crozer’s landlord, Medical Properties Trust, wrote off $171 million, or 40%, of the $420 million it had paid for the real estate occupied by Crozer’s four Delaware County hospitals. In May, MPT converted its lease on the Crozer properties into a $155 million mortgage and said Crozer didn’t have to make payments for two years.

March 2023: Crozer laid off 215 people, 4% of its workforce, and said it would close the sleep center at Taylor Hospital, cardiac rehabilitation and wound care in Springfield, and outpatient drug and alcohol treatment at Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

January 2024: The medical residency program in surgery at Crozer-Chester Medical Center lost its accreditation.

February 2024: A Court of Common Pleas judge approved an agreement between the Pennsylvania attorney general and Prospect to put Crozer up for sale, but only to potential nonprofit acquirers.

August 2024: Prospect reached a preliminary agreement to sell Crozer to CHA Partners LLC, a Bloomfield, N.J., real estate company that specializes in converting closed hospitals into mixed-use medical buildings.

October 2024: Pennsylvania’s attorney general made the unprecedented move of petitioning a Delaware County court to give the state control of the financially beleaguered health system. Prospect tried to moved the legal proceedings to federal court, but the attorney general is fighting the switch.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect the latest major developments at Crozer Health.