Landmark seeks Caritas partnership

WOONSOCKET – Landmark Medical Center is seeking state approval for a partnership with Caritas Christi Health Care to provide PET and CT services at the Woonsocket hospital at least one day per week, replacing an independent local provider, Rhode Island PET Services LLC.
The deal, which requires a “certificate of need” from the R.I. Department of Health, could be a first step in formally connecting Landmark with Caritas, which has expressed an interest in buying the hospital as part of a larger effort to expand and become more competitive in the region.
Caritas, in turn, is seeking approval to be acquired for $830 million by Cerberus Capital Management, a New York investment firm, and become a for-profit entity. If it went on to buy Landmark, it would be the first for-profit owner of a hospital in Rhode Island.
The PET/CT program would involve Caritas PET LLC, an affiliate of Caritas, which is New England’s largest community-based health care delivery network. Caritas PET currently serves five community hospitals in southern Massachusetts, all members of the Caritas network, according to Landmark.
PET is positron emission tomography, a type of nuclear medicine imaging. It uses small amounts of radioactive material to diagnose or treat cancers, heart disease and other abnormalities.
CT is computed tomography, a specialized type of X-ray imaging, sometimes using a contrast material, to produce multiple images of an area of the body. PET and CT are increasingly combined in the same units.
Landmark has relied on a mobile PET unit for several years. Switching to Caritas, hospital officials said in their CON application, will better integrate PET services with Landmark’s other programs and give the hospital and medical staff more clinical and administrative oversight.
In addition, they said, it will help the hospital ensure that it meets its charity-care goals, and it will allow it to keep a share of the revenue from PET scans to help offset other expenses. “This factor is especially important given the hospital’s recent financial difficulties,” they wrote.
The application notes that Landmark and Caritas are working to bring the Woonsocket hospital into the Caritas network, adding that while the process “is still in its early stages, it nevertheless includes efforts to identify opportunities for strengthening Landmark through collaboration (as allowed by law) with Caritas.”
The new service is expected to cost $368,486 per year, Landmark said. It would begin next January.
The CON application is available here.