{"id":780934,"date":"2026-07-24T01:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780934\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T01:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:38:18","slug":"erlanger-looks-to-join-prisma-health-what-would-the-change-mean-for-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/780934\/","title":{"rendered":"Erlanger looks to join Prisma Health: What would the change mean for patients?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. \u2014 Thursday we’re looking into a potential new partnership between Erlanger health and Prisma Health and what that change would mean for patients.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Erlanger announced they signed a non-binding letter of intent to become part of the South-Carolina based healthcare system.<\/p>\n

Erlanger officials say patients will not see an immediate change in care or operations.<\/p>\n

\"Image:<\/p>\n

Instead, they say the biggest change would be giving Erlanger access to resources of a larger health system.<\/p>\n

But some experts say trends show that costs could be on the rise if the change takes place.<\/p>\n

Erlanger CEO Jim Coleman says…<\/p>\n

“We really focused on finding the right partner that matched the culture of Erlanger and had a lot of traits that Erlanger had, and they do that.”\"Image:<\/p>\n

That would make Erlanger only the second east-Tennessee hospital to join South Carolina based Prisma. The first was Blount Memorial Hospital at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

We reached out to Blount County officials who had to approve the move.<\/p>\n

Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell tells us…<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen our hospital change for the positive from doctors, nurses, and staff to services and the software – the improvements are visible.”\"Doctors<\/p>\n

Doctors and nurses in hospital. Getty Images.<\/p>\n

But ratings from leap-frog<\/a> show they went from a grade of C before the change to A’s and B’s.<\/p>\n

Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute, tells us…<\/p>\n

“Independent hospitals have been shrinking in terms of their presence in the United States. They only comprise about 30% of of all hospitals. The rest are affiliated with a system.”<\/p>\n

Ho says the move to a system is a way for hospitals to get better bargaining power.<\/p>\n

\"Prisma<\/p>\n

Prisma Health. WZTV file photo.<\/p>\n

“The hospital will argue that there’s a large infusion of capital coming from the healthcare system that can improve the quality of care. That may be true, but the patient will pay for it in terms of higher costs and then higher insurance premiums down the road.”<\/p>\n

Prisma’s system is also noticeably smaller when compared to other systems overseeing the two other main hospitals in our area. <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo by Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images, file<\/p>\n

We asked Ho how that makes a difference…<\/p>\n

“The fact that Prisma is smaller than the other healthcare systems means that maybe the prices won’t increase as much, but they’re going to go up anyways.”\"WTVC\"<\/p>\n

We reached out to Erlanger to ask how they might work to absolve any potential increases in costs. They tell us…<\/p>\n

“Each hospital partnership is unique and by joining with Prisma Health we will be better positioned to address the cost of healthcare by investing in people, facilities and services and continuing to provide the high-quality care this community has come to expect from Erlanger Health.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. \u2014 Thursday we’re looking into a potential new partnership between Erlanger health and Prisma Health and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-780934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}