Northwest Specialty Hospital, of Post Falls, and Mountain View Hospital, of Idaho Falls, say they’ve established a new ownership structure that will allow Northwest Specialty to remain physician owned and operated.

Also, Northwest Specialty has ended an agreement with Tacoma-based MultiCare Health System through which the nonprofit health care organization would have become the majority owner of the Post Falls specialty hospital. 

Both parties recently agreed to end their previous agreement, which they first made in 2017,  according to a press release from Northwest Specialty Hospital.

A nationally recognized, award-winning hospital, Northwest Specialty started as a collaboration between Northwest Doctors LLC, a group of local providers, and Surgery Partners Inc., which operates surgical facilities at more than 180 locations across the country.

Mountain View, which like Northwest Specialty, has earned a top overall quality rating of five stars from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is a part of the Surgery Partners network as well.

Surgery Partners is an independent operator of short-stay surgical facilities. Based in Brentwood, Tennessee, the company has a presence in 30 states and on average serves more than 600,000 patients per year. 

“We’re happy to announce that we’ll be able to continue our tradition of providing some of the best care in the country at home,” Rick Rasmussen, CEO of Northwest Specialty Hospital, says in the press release.

Rasmussen says the hospital, located at 1593 E. Polston, in the Post Falls medical district, was founded on the premise that physician-owned facilities offer patients better care.

In the Feb. 27 edition of the Journal, Northwest Specialty Hospital reported it has 34 licensed beds, 13 physicians, 126 nurses, and has an overall roster of 323 full-time equivalents.

“We have an exceptional record of providing lower infection rates, some of the lowest costs in the region, and superior patient satisfaction scores,” he claims.

Says Mountain View’s CEO James Adamson in the press release, “We’re excited to work with the physicians and employees of Northwest Specialty Hospital to further the well-established, patient-centric mission they’ve been working on for the past two decades.”