When Private Equity Comes for Your Rural Hospital

When Private Equity Comes for Your Rural Hospital
When two Missouri hospitals began shutting down in March, KHN's chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble was reporting inside the Audrain Community Hospital. Tribble met a nurse who was resolute. She told her: “You’ll be seen; the ER is open.”

The hospital in Mexico, Missouri, had just marked its first anniversary under a new owner, Noble Health. The company also owned Callaway Community Hospital down the road in Fulton. Noble had been created in late 2019 with the stated mission of improving rural health care. Instead, it bought and then closed the two hospitals in less than two years.