A federal bankruptcy court judge on Monday blessed the process that bankrupt Steward Health Care plans to use to sell or auction its 31 nationwide hospitals and physicians network in the coming weeks, including eight in Massachusetts.
“Today we’re just outlining procedures and process, and that is what this motion is really about. We’re not picking a winner today, we’re picking a process that will allow parties’ rights and provide transparency to the process, and that’s what today is really about, and that’s what this motion is requesting,” Judge Christopher Lopez said after hearing about half an hour of arguments, almost entirely in support of the timeline Steward proposed. “So today’s just step one in the process. And I understand that, but an important one. You can’t get to step two without step one, and today I will approve the motion.”
The timeline that Lopez approved Monday sets a deadline for bids on Steward’s Massachusetts hospitals (and hospitals in other states aside from Florida) of June 24 and schedules sale hearings to be held before the judge on July 11. Steward is proposing to sell its physician services network, Stewardship Health, along the same timeline.
In a court filing ahead of Monday’s hearing, Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office said Massachusetts did not object to Steward’s expedited offloading schedule — “Indeed, Massachusetts supports the arrival of a new operator or operators who can provide high-quality patient care to Massachusetts residents,” the AG’s office said. But a lawyer representing both Campbell’s office and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services chimed in during Monday afternoon’s bankruptcy court hearing to remind the judge that the state officially reserves its rights to review and act on hospital transfers.
“Many of the sales, all of the sales, are going to require some kind of regulatory approval, and the rights that are being reserved include…