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"QMC is roughly a half-hour drive from the more-famous hospitals in downtown Boston and as a result the patients who have the finances and the transportation have elective inpatient procedures performed downtown or at competing institutions." "What Steward has learned over the past several years is that there has not been substantial demand for commercial inpatient services at QMC," Powell says. Transportation links to other community health access pointsĪdam Powell, a healthcare economist and president of Boston-based Payer+Provider consultants, says Steward knew it was gambling when it purchased several financially struggling not-for-profit hospitals in eastern Massachusetts, "but as a result of that, they have a substantial network that was built quickly in this market.".Continued access to 15 hospitals within 10 miles of QMC, including a Steward hospital four miles away.Steward PCPs and specialist physicians in Quincy.Radiological services including X-Ray, mammography, CT, and ultrasound.Instead of an acute care hospital, the shuttered QMC will be replaced "with a more sustainable healthcare system to meet the community's needs," Steward said.

There are also 12 surgery centers, 21 urgent care centers, more than 150 nursing homes, 130 outpatient behavioral health sites, and more than 500 physicians within that radius, Steward says. Steward said the closure shouldn't greatly affect patient access because there are 15 acute care hospitals located within 10 miles of QMC in the hospital-saturated Boston area.

"On an average day, only one-fifth of all beds are occupied and it has become abundantly clear that local residents no longer seek inpatient services from Quincy Medical Center," Girard said. He also said that Steward has dropped an additional $100 million into the hospital since its purchase in 2011, but that the hospital continues to lose about $20 million a year. He noted that in the past 20 years QMC has needed more than $100 million in city and state bailouts before falling into bankruptcy. Girard blamed the closure on low volumes, declining reimbursements from Medicare, and underfunding from Medicaid. Calls to Steward for comment Friday were not returned. In a lengthy media release posted on its QMC website, Steward Hospitals President Mark Girard, MD, did not address the apparent discrepancies with the AG's agreement from 2011. In addition to the AG's agreement, a separate Massachusetts state law requires hospitals that are closing to provide a 90-day notice window and to submit to a public hearing, neither of which Steward appears to be doing with QMC.