Redeemer Health filed for bankruptcy protection
The Montgomery County health system has reported operating losses every year since 2017.
Redeemer Health filed for bankruptcy protection late Sunday as part of a bid to preserve services at its Montgomery County hospital and other businesses. No immediate impact is expected for patients and employees.
The nonprofit system with dwindling cash reserves missed a debt payment in September, following at least nine straight years of operating losses.
Holy Redeemer Hospital, with 239 beds in Abington Township, will continue operating during the bankruptcy, as will the system’s other businesses, Redeemer officials said. Redeemer’s operations include local retirement communities, nursing homes, and home health services.
“Our responsibility is to pursue every viable opportunity to preserve care for the people who depend on Redeemer Health,” the organization’s longtime board chair, Bill Sasso, said in a statement.
Even before the filing Sunday in Philadelphia, Redeemer officials were exploring options with other area health systems. “We are deeply encouraged by the support being offered by major health systems in our region,” he said.
Sasso, chair emeritus of Stradley Ronon, a Philadelphia law firm, did not identify the health systems that have offered support to the Catholic institution nor provide details on what the systems are considering.
Dilworth Paxson LLP is representing Redeemer in the bankruptcy.
Redeemer’s future as a traditional acute-care hospital is uncertain. A previous effort, launched in 2022, failed to find a buyer for the hospital in an area of wealthy Montgomery County that has plenty of healthcare options.
The availability of alternatives sets Redeemer apart from other Philadelphia-area hospital bankruptcies in recent years. The bankruptcies of Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in 2019 and of Crozer Health last year affected underserved populations. Concern about losing needed safety-net care set off scrambles to find a way to save St. Chris, Hahnemann, and Crozer-Chester Medical Center. Only St. Chris remains in operation.
In Redeemer’ case, the bankruptcy is not expected to immediately affect patient care, nor the livelihoods of roughly 3,500 employees. “This filing in no way means we are closing any acute care or post-acute care operations,” interim CEO Jim Logue said in a message to employees shared with The Inquirer.
Logue said patients should keep their appointments.
An order of nuns from Germany, the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer, founded Holy Redeemer Hospital in the 1950s. In 2020, the nuns withdrew from their role as sponsors of the hospital after creating a new entity called Redeemer Ministries to ensure that the institution follows Catholic teachings.
Financial troubles in competitive market
Most hospital systems are under financial pressure from rising costs and resistance to higher reimbursement from government and employers. But Redeemer has the added challenge of stiff competition from Jefferson Health’s large hospital in Abington, just a few miles away.
Holy Redeemer is the only hospital in the Philadelphia region that is not part of a larger system, after the sales last year of Grand View Hospital to St. Luke’s University Health Network and Doylestown Hospital to the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Its small scale made it difficult to achieve financial stability.
Redeemer’s latest financial report to bondholders showed a $29 million operating loss on $332 million in revenue in the nine months ended March 31. Redeemer had $119 million of long-term debt on that date.
The health system notified bondholders Wednesday that its audited financial statements for the year ended June 30 was late.
In 2024, Michael Laign retired after three decades as Redeemer CEO. He replacement was Greg Wozniak, a former CEO of St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne. The same year Redeemer hired Chicago consulting firm Kaufman Hall to help devise a financial turnaround plan that apparently either came too late or wasn’t working.
Wozniak resigned abruptly in September. Logue, his successor, had been Redeemer’s chief transformation officer since Feb. 2025.
