Progressive Health Expands Reach With Management Deal for Hope Hospital

(Progressive Health Group)

You may know that Progressive Health Group of Oxford, Mississippi, has owned Helena’s hospital since January, and renamed it Progressive Health of Helena.

You may also know that it is one of the state’s four rural emergency hospitals, no longer offering inpatient services.  But did you know PHG also has a contract to manage the recently sold hospital in Hope?

“We recently added to our footprint in Arkansas by agreeing to manage the hospital at Hope that was recently acquired out of bankruptcy,” PHG CEO and owner Quentin Whitwell told Whispers.

Pafford Medical Services of Hope paid $200,000 for the former Wadley Regional Medical Center. The hospital, renamed Southwest Arkansas Regional Medical Center, is the last hospital on southbound Interstate 30 before the Texas line.

“I think the Pafford family wanted to step in to help the community,” Whitwell said in a telephone interview, just after stopping to order a drive-through cup of coffee.

The Hope hospital was one of 31 owned by Steward Healthcare Group, which declared bankruptcy in Texas in May. The Hempstead County Quorum Court and city directors in Hope pledged $1 million in monthly installments of $100,000 to help Pafford in the transition.

“The state of Arkansas is a wonderful state with a lot of opportunity for people in business and industry,” Whitwell said. “I want to continue to grow there, because I feel like it’s a very business-friendly state.”

Whitwell mentioned challenges in how the state conducts its Medicaid system and wants to work on that.

“I hope to bring some expertise to the table, using the formulas that we know work in our systems to benefit the hospitals in Arkansas as well as other hospitals across the country,” he said.

“We are not solely in the rural emergency hospital business, but we are primarily. We are more than glad to work with other hospitals that need us.”