MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Just a day before a specialized transition team with Prime Healthcare Foundation arrived at Oconee Regional Medical Center in Milledgeville, the hospital’s interim Chief Executive Officer Steven M. Johnson was out in the community talking to residents about the new partnership.

A sales agreement was reached last week between various local hospital boards for Prime Healthcare Foundation to purchase the hospital and other entities for a reported $12 million.

Johnson provided members of Central State Hospital Local Redevelopment Authority and others on hand Wednesday an update concerning the hospital.

“When I was hear the last time, I had no earthly idea that I would be here in May of 2017,” Johnson said. “As you guys know, I was brought here in an interim capacity. It was to be for an assignment of some 90 to possibly 120 days. And we’re now working on, I think, month 18. So, it has extended much further than we originally anticipated.”

Johnson said one of the positives about the extended stay is that he has been able to develop close relationships within the community.

“I’m very appreciative of that,” Johnson said. “The staff of that hospital has been just enormously great. The board has been steadfast. They have worked their tails off on this thing. We actually went to market March 30, 2016.”

He admitted that such a process shouldn’t have taken so long, but in this particular case, it did.

The hospital is celebrating its 60^th anniversary this year.

“Sixty years of continuous service to this community is an accomplishment that I think everybody there is proud of,” Johnson said. “We also had a sidebar bit of business where we announced the sale of ORMC. It’s an asset purchase agreement to Prime Healthcare.”

Johnson pointed out that local hospital officials targeted three specific goals when they did what they did. The biggest of those goals was ensuring that the hospital kept its doors open.

“I would think that this body would appreciate that because that’s kind of the business you’re in is economic development,” Johnson said. “Without a hospital, economic development is — well, it’s non-existent. We clearly did not want to be the eighth hospital in Georgia the last couple of years that had closed.

“What happens historically to communities when hospitals close is it’s devastating,” Johnson said. “You have nothing recruit to. It would be like shutting your school system down. You can’t do that either. So, I’ll argue that every industry is important, but if you don’t have skills and you don’t have health care, you’ve got nothing.”

The second goal was to continue to provide the services that the hospital has been providing, and even to grow those services, he said.

“We anticipate that we will be doing that,” Johnson said. “But we’ve got to get back on a more solid financial foundation. Our struggles over the last five years are well chronicled, those publicly and private. We’re standing up to that and we understand that. But we’ve taken steps to address it, and we’re moving forward.”

The third goal is to remain one of the area’s largest employers.

“And we’re still going to,” Johnson said. “They’ll probably be some adjustments in staff, because you have to staff according to volumes. But Prime has a very ambitious plan of growing the volumes at this hospital. We know it’s possible, because it’s been done before. It’s been done over the last 10 years. We’ve seen good financial results, so only in the last five or six years have they dipped and set a trend that’s disturbing.”

During the Oconee Regional Medical Center Inc. board meeting later Wednesday night, Johnson announced that members of the Prime Healthcare Foundation transition team would be at the hospital all day Thursday and for a half-day today.

Johnson explained a little about why it’s taken so long for local hospital officials to get this far.

“Backing you up a little bit, some of you may remember the Navicent deal of a couple of years ago, where we entered into a management services agreement with them,” Johnson said, noting that there were some, including some local physicians, who didn’t think the waterfront had been searched enough. “You’ve really got to scourer it, and you’ve really got to do a better job of looking at your alternatives.”

The agreement with The Medical Center of Navicent Health in Macon was dissolved about 1 ½ years ago.

Within a short period of time, a new plan was underway.

Two different consulting groups were brought in to assist local hospital officials accomplish the goals they established.

Investment banking firm Houlihan-Lokey has acted as financial advisors for hospital officials, hired along with Grant Thornton, a nationally known accounting firm.

“We asked them to help lead us through this process,” Johnson said. “They have; they did.”

Johnson said hospital officials along with the consultants from both firms looked under every rock, and every option available to the hospital, including another possible management services agreement, a sales option, or a lease option.

“We ultimately decided that the sales option provided us the best opportunity to achieve our goals, remain open, provide the services, and remain one of the area’s largest employers,” Johnson said. “That was important to us.”

Hospital officials spent a lot of time vetting options with 56 initial levels of interest after the hospital was placed on the market.

That list eventually depleted to only four interested parties, and ultimately to one of them turned out to be Prime Healthcare Foundation.

“We’ve had particular hang-ups with our sister hospital, Jasper, which we don’t own,” Johnson said, referring to Jasper Memorial Hospital in nearby Monticello. “It’s simply a lease arrangement.”

Johnson said the hospital in Monticello, which owes ORMC thousands of dollars for various services rendered during management agreement, wanted to go one way, while ORMC officials were seeking to go in another direction.

“Breaking up that marriage is part of this process, too,” Johnson said, noting that he and other hospital officials are proud to be where they now find themselves in their new partnership with Prime Healthcare Foundation.

As it stands, there are two main steps left concerning the official acquisition of the hospital by Prime Healthcare Foundation, and both of them are regulatory in nature.

One involves the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, and the other, which Johnson described as “a little distasteful,” involves the hospital declaring bankruptcy, as part of the financial arrangement between ORMC and Prime Healthcare Foundation.