Timeline: See how the Wellstar and AU Health merger came about from the beginning
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The Wellstar - AU Health merger is finalized at long last. But the deal that resulted in the newly formed Wellstar MCG started long before December, when the two entities released their letter of intent.
Here is a timeline of how the deal came to be, as outlined in documents filed with the Office of the Attorney General and reporting by the Chronicle.
Narrowing down to Wellstar
2014: AU Medical Center created strategic options assessment, including looking at potential partners. That assessment was revisited in 2017, and then 2019 AU Health formed a Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnership Committee.
Aug. 22, 2019: The healthcare consulting firm Ponder & Co. attended a board meeting of AU Health and created a process and a timeline for a possible merger, including an instruction letter with information about the possible partnership.
Oct. 18, 2019: Ponder contracted 18 health systems, 14 of which signed non-disclosure agreements to get the information about the proposal. Four nonprofit health systems and one for-profit health systems provided written responses by Oct. 18.
November 2019: Two of the healthcare systems contacted withdrew from the process. In December, the three remaining organizations, including Wellstar, met with the Board of Regents, Augusta University, and AU Health.
2020: As COVID-19 arrived, the entire process of finding a new partner was put on pause.
Aug. 26, 2021: AU Health engaged Ponder again to look in to a potential sale, and Ponder updated the information for potential partners again, identifying 11 potential partners.
Oct. 4, 2021: Ponder sent out an instruction letter again to the 11 potential partners, three of whom responded positively, including Wellstar.
March 1, 2022: All three potential partners sent letters of intent after another round of meetings. Two of the three partners decided to remove themselves from the process at that point, leaving Wellstar as the remaining option.
Dec. 27, 2022: AU Health and Wellstar signed a letter of intent outlining the process to negotiate a deal.
Negotiating the deal for the Wellstar, AU Health merger
March: Several state lawmakers file federal complaints over Wellstar's decision in 2022 to close two Atlanta-area hospitals, Atlanta Medical Center and Atlanta Medical Center-South, which served largely Black patients.
March 31, 2023: Augusta University President Brooks Keel, Wellstar President and CEO Candice Saunders and University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Purdue hold a joint press conference announcing that the boards of all three organizations had approved a deal.
April 21, 2023: The agreement is filed with the Office of the Attorney General for routine legal review. This proposal included a maximum commitment of $797 million invested in AU Health over 10 years by Wellstar and construction of Columbia County's first hospital, for which AU Health held a permit.
June 28, 2023: The Office of the Attorney General holds a public hearing in Augusta, outlining the proposed merger and taking both written and in-person comments. Most of the public comments were supportive of the deal, although a few expressed concern over Wellstar's record with AMC.
July 27, 2023: The Office of the Attorney General approves the proposed merger. In the following weeks, the University System of Georgia named representatives to the Wellstar and AU Health System board, and the Augusta Board of Commissioners re-issued bonds to transfer them to Wellstar MCG. The Columbia County Board of Commissioners had already finalized an agreement to issue bonds for the new hospital once the deal was approved.
Aug. 30, 2023: Keel, Saunders and Purdue hold a ceremonial signing to mark the first day of Wellstar MCG Health.
What comes next for Wellstar MCG?
Work on the Columbia County hospital has already begun, and according to Keel Wellstar has already met with some of the leaders of Columbia County, although they do not yet have a timeline on the issuance of bonds. There is not yet a date for MCG to open the new clinical campus for medical students to get hands-on experience at the Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta.
Wellstar is also taking over AU Health-operated Roosevelt Warm Springs Rehabilitation & Specialty Hospitals. According to Keel, while the legal entity that operates the facility will now be named Wellstar MCG Health Warm Springs Inc., the Roosevelt name will continue to be part of the branding.
As for the branding in Augusta, banners with the new Wellstar MCG name are already going up on campus.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Timeline: Wellstar merger result of years long process by AU Health
