After HCA buys HAI, a group of HAI executives head to Dallas with $1.25 million to start Republic Healthcare Corp., a hospital management company.
At its inception the company only owns two hospitals, but it grows quickly, raising enough equity to purchase 18 hospitals from HCA a year later for $215 million. One driver of this fund-raising boom is the company’s relatively unknown securities lawyer, a young Rick Scott.
Republic Health will later be renamed OrNda and eventually sell to Tenet Healthcare for $3.2 billion in 1996. Nashville entrepreneur Charlie Martin, founder of HealthTrust, will be named chairman and CEO of OrNda in 1992.
Meanwhile, Ragsdale and Miller go on to start Community Health Systems with Thomas Chaney.
