An agreement was reached at the last minute on Monday to reopen Hutcheson Medical Center in Fort Oglethorpe under new ownership.
The winning bidder was ValorBridge, which is affiliated with ApolloMD. ApolloMD has been in business over 30 years and has over 1,000 physicians. It operates over 100 facilities in 17 states.
ApolloMD earlier had been operating the emergency room at Hutcheson.
It appeared earlier People's Choice had the winning $4 million bid. Then ValorBridge late Friday offered $4.2 million.
ValorBridge, which is based in Atlanta and New York offered more cash as well as a $1 million deposit. People's Choice, based in Chicago, declined to raise its offer.
Attorneys said they were working on the final details of the sale.
The deal was made possible when Georgia health officials agreed to allow the hospital license to stay in place until Dec. 24. It had been scheduled to expire today.
The hospital, after going bankrupt, had closed its doors on Dec. 4.
Also approved was the sale of the hospital nursing home to Maybrook Health Care for $7.2 million. Maybrook also is paying $100,000 for the nearby child care center. Officials said the child care center may eventually be used for food preparation for the nursing home. The hospital kitchen is currently used.
Maybrook will pay $3,500 per month to access the hospital kitchen and $5,000 per month for continued use of 16 sub-acute beds in the hospital.
The deal for Parkside Nursing Home averts the threat of over 100 residents having to move to another state facility.
The sale of the hospital and nursing home was made possible by all parties in the case agreeing to a settlement deal on issues related to liens against the bankrupt facility. Erlanger Health System agreed to give up its claim to the land under the hospital.
In return, Erlanger will get $1.2 million from the proceeds of the hospital sale, $1,390,000 from the nursing home sale and $225,000 if the doctors office building is sold.
Erlanger reserves its claims against the Hospital Authority and Catoosa and Walker counties incurred during its former management of Hutcheson. They reserve their claims against Erlanger as well.
As part of the settlement, Catoosa and Walker counties would get some credit toward their debt to Erlanger Health System. They earlier agreed to guarantee a $20 million infusion from Erlanger to Hutcheson at $10 million each.
Hutcheson has operated for over six decades.