The Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, one of the largest non-profit senior living and care providers in the U.S., on Wednesday officially completed its marriage to Sanford Health.
As a result of the combination, Sanford Health now employs almost 50,000 people. As of June 2018, when the combination of Good Samaritan and Sanford was approved by Good Samaritan, the Society had approximately 80 skilled nursing facilities.
The Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford now offers services ranging from acute care and health insurance to skilled nursing in 26 states as a result of the combination with Good Samaritan.
“With the affiliation complete, leaders can begin the exciting work of exchanging knowledge and developing ideas to better serve our patients and residents,” Sanford Health president and CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft said in a press release announcing the transaction. “Bringing the expertise together will create a national model on how to deliver exceptional care through the full spectrum of life.”
David Horazdovsky will remain CEO of Good Samaritan and has joined the corporate leadership team at Sanford. Randy Bury, who was previously Sanford’s chief administration officer, has transitioned to the role of president of Good Samaritan.
Good Samaritan, which is also based in Sioux Falls, voted to approve the merger with Sanford in June of last year. Integration of long-term care services will be a key focus of the merger, Grant Tribble, Good Samaritan’s chief financial officer, told Skilled Nursing News after the vote.
Those areas of integration could include LTC physician practice work and insurance, he said at the time.
“Things like I-SNP programs will be a great ability for an integrated system to be able to add provisions of care, and those are not hospital-specific,” he told SNN in June. “We could be working in those I-SNP programs, and it could be in a locale where Sanford may or may not be.”
Tribble also classified the deal as a way to control the entire continuum of health for its patients — a common refrain in recent years as providers seek to manage individual patients’ care from hospital to home.
“We each recognize the importance of vertical and horizontal integration across the health care delivery system,” he said. “If you think about Sanford now … really they never had a very specific approach to long-term care. The two organizations coming together could offer a lot more synergy and expertise and ability to deliver a broader range of care.”
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