NEPA hospitals sale: Staff, community leaders cautiously optimistic as deal nears

Employees at three Northeast Pennsylvania hospitals breathed a sigh of relief last week when the state approved plans for an acquisition.

“It's been a very stressful year, maybe even going into two years now of worrying about is somebody gonna buy us? What's gonna happen," said Corinne Cianfichi, an occupational therapist at Regional Hospital in Scranton and the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare PA union chapter there.

Tenor Health Foundation wants to purchase Regional, along with Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, from their current owners, Community Health Systems, which operates locally as Commonwealth Health System (CHS).

But staff at the financially struggling hospitals were left in uncomfortable limbo after a 2024 purchase deal from a different buyer fell through.

"All the not knowing and a lot of disappointments for the past two years, thinking you’re getting bought and then you're not, and it's just been like a roller coaster,” Cianfichi said.

That was followed by nearly a year of uncertainty until Tenor publicly emerged as a second potential buyer in August 2025.

A deal was signed in October, but another anxiety-filled five months would pass before last week's news that state health officials had given their required blessing to the transfer of ownership.

Officials have not yet publicly announced a closing date, but a CHS spokesperson said both parties are working "to finalize the transaction as quickly and as smoothly as possible," a position echoed by Tenor's leadership.

While a resolution finally appears close at hand, the long period of uncertainty has left its mark on the staff.

“Working conditions are tough when you are worrying about the future of your hospital, and am I going to have a job? Am I going to have a paycheck? A lot of staff have left," Cianfichi said.

"Nurses, doctors, services have been closed, shut down," she added. "So yes, it's been difficult, but for the most part, the majority of us have stuck it out, and we're positive, and we want to continue to provide care to all of our patients."

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WVIA News

'High expectations' for Tenor

Bob Clark, a telemetry nurse at Wilkes-Barre General and a union member of the Wyoming Valley Nurses Association chapter of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), said the latest developments have him and other staff feeling cautiously optimistic.

“Well, if the state Department of Health and the government is willing to approve of the sale that's some reassurance for me. I have to depend on their good judgment,” Clark said.

He anticipates working with Tenor soon.

“We have a contract that's expiring with the current employer, and our union should be sitting down as soon as possible with the new owners to carve out an agreement. So I'm hoping that something along those lines will start happening as soon as possible,” he said.

And in Scranton, employees hope Tenor focuses on reinforcing the workforce.

“We have a lot of high expectations for Tenor,” Cianfichi said.

“We expect them then to do right by us, by maintaining services that we already have and expanding services that we need and bring back the doctors and the nurses and and services that we are not currently having," she said. "We also need them to invest in our buildings and equipment and, of course, the staff.”

Next steps for Tenor: Sale, recruitment

Tenor CEO Radha Savitala hopes for a quick closing.

Once the deal is complete, Savitala said she’ll be focused on patient care.

“We will ensure that there's no disruption to the workforce or to patient care, and we will not only stabilize operations, but look towards executing a plan for market revitalization between the three campuses,” she said.

The two health systems will complete a private deal, so full details about financing and sale price remain unknown.

According to CHS spokesperson Annmarie Poslock, Commonwealth Health currently employs 2,400 people across its three hospital locations and clinics in the region.

Savitala said the biggest challenge in the transition’s early stages will be recruitment.

“The goal is to stabilize operations and ensure that we can recruit employees to get operations back to where they need to be,” she said.

Wilkes-Barre General no longer offers obstetric care, for example. Savitala said right now there are no plans to return a labor and delivery unit to the hospital, but that there are plans to expand access.

Tenor Health Foundation is a nonprofit "formed to identify, own, manage, and turn around financially challenged hospitals,” according to its website. Tenor's first acquisition was Sharon Regional Medical Center in Mercer County. That hospital, previously privately owned, closed last January. It reopened under Tenor's ownership in March.

“Healthcare is very, very local,” Savitala said. “I do expect different needs for the communities, but healthcare is just a very nurturing environment, but it's also a difficult environment ... But there's just so much support that we feel in these communities, both in the Sharon area as well as in the Northeast PA area, for the continued success of these facilities.”

Elected officials weigh in on Tenor deal progression

Cianfichi credited elected officials like state Rep. Bridget Kosierowski (D-Lackawanna) for supporting the union and all hospital workers.

“I wanted to thank them for standing with us and supporting us through this entire past year or so of this, because it's been a lot, and whenever I had a call out, they always returned my calls,” Cianfichi said.

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WVIA News

Kosierowski worked to help secure a new buyer since an initial deal between CHS and Woodbridge Healthcare, Inc. fell through in November 2024.

“It’s been a long road,” Kosierowski said in a live radio interview Wednesday with WVIA News. “We are very happy to be able to announce that the change of ownership has been approved, which means continuity of care. Continuity of care is the most important thing for our patient population here, so this is a good day.”

Kosierowski also credited her partners through the process, including U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Luzerne).

“Everybody who has been involved in this process put politics aside, and we all worked within our own respective lanes to figure out what needed to be done to get this deal to where it is today,” Bresnahan said.

He expects a deal very soon.

“We're under the understanding that now it's going to be the final closing documents, and perhaps much of the paperwork that Community Health Systems needs to then do to transfer the three hospitals to Tenor. The working plan, from what we understand, it should be, perhaps in the next few weeks,” Bresnahan said.

Bresnahan believes the next steps will go smoothly.

“Obviously subject to change, but as of the time that we are doing this interview, we don't foresee or have any knowledge of anything else that could possibly derail this anymore,” he said during an interview Thursday.

Relief in Scranton, where hospital closure was ‘imminent’ 

Bresnahan told WVIA News in early January that a closure notice from CHS was ‘imminent’ and ‘dangerously close’ late last summer for the Scranton hospitals.

CHS was losing up to $2 million a month on the Scranton hospitals, according to Bresnahan.

A group of community organizations came together last summer to financially support the struggling hospitals. They gave “millions of dollars” over a three-month period to cover the Scranton hospitals’ losses.

Participating in the funding arrangement were: The Scranton Area Community Foundation, AllOne Foundation & Charities, Luzerne Foundation, Moses Taylor Foundation, NEPA Health Care Foundation, Allied Services, The Wright Center, and the Scranton Chamber of Commerce.

“It's been years that we've been worried that Regional and Moses would not be able to stay open. It's no secret that CHS has not continued to invest for many years in those hospitals. So it is a relief that the license transfer application from Tenor Health passed the Department of Health vetting, and we look forward to hopefully a positive result for the private transaction between CHS and Tenor,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said.

She’s ready to support Tenor through the last steps.

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WVIA News

“We have not been asked for any sort of financing through our health and welfare authority as Tenor Health did ask down in Luzerne, that's not something that has come to us, but we'll be here to talk with Tenor about whatever it is that they need to be successful,” she said.

Luzerne County Council in November approved Tenor’s financing plan to borrow up to $72 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds to purchase Wilkes-Barre General.

Cognetti does want Tenor’s board to include local input.

“While we look to close this chapter, we certainly are entering another chapter where we have to make sure that there are local voices that are part of the governance structure of this new entity,” she said.

The mayor thanked hospital workers who stuck around through the confusion of the past year.

“It's been years now, that they haven't known what their next month might look like, and they have stayed there to care for the people of our community, and we are grateful for that,” Cognetti said.

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WVIA News

Fiscal challenges and federal funding changes

In fiscal 2023, expenses outpaced revenues by 24.1% at Moses Taylor; 9.5% at Regional and 15.7% at Wilkes-Barre General, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council report for that year.

Regional and Moses Taylor now operate under one license. CHS consolidated their emergency rooms at Regional.

According to the council's most recent report, for fiscal 2024, expenses outpaced revenues by 20.6% at the combined Regional Hospital of Scranton and by 6.19% at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

That’s an ongoing concern for officials. So are changes to federal health care funding expected in the coming years, including cuts to Medicaid.

President Donald Trump’s budget law, also commonly known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” made historic changes to the state and federally financed health program that provides health insurance to nearly 3 million Pennsylvanians.

Those covered by the program include those with disabilities, low-income families and older adults.

The law implements work requirements, with exemptions for certain groups including pregnant people, individuals with disabilities and caregivers. There will also be more frequent eligibility checks. Most of those changes go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

According to KFF, these changes are estimated to increase the number of uninsured Americans by 7.5 million in 2034. Federal Medicaid spending would be decreased by $911 billion over a decade.

Tenor CEO Savitala is already considering these changes when it comes to the long-term viability of the hospitals.

“Medicaid is already a low level reimbursement, and if that gets reduced even further, that makes it a very tough environment, especially when you're dealing with a highly vulnerable patient population. Coupled with the lower reimbursement, I think that would have a ripple effect nationally," she said.

"We highly would advocate for no cuts, if not enhanced reimbursement, just so that we can continue to take care of these patients,” Savitala added.

While she is celebrating the state’s approval and the impending deal, Savitala knows there’s much to do.

“A sigh of relief, but I think that'll be short only because the real hard work begins now post acquisition and working with the teams and boots on the ground, so we've got a lot of hard but important work to do, and really, this is what keeps us going," she said.

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Editor's note: WVIA Healthcare Reporter Lydia McFarlane's position is supported through funding from Moses Taylor Foundation, AllOne Charities, Eureka Foundation, Wayne County Community Foundation and Community Foundation of the Endless Mountains.