Investors are debating whether troubled for-profit hospital operator Tenet Healthcare should break up into three separate companies — one focused on its main hospital assets, another devoted to its growing ambulatory surgery centers and a third featuring its medical billing company, Conifer.
Key quote: "Those arguments will likely get more attention in the coming months," Trevor Fetter, Tenet's soon-to-be ousted CEO, said Wednesday at the Baird Global Healthcare Conference.
Between the lines: Tenet is mired in losses, and activist investor Glenview Capital Management wants changes. Splintering into three companies isn't a certainty for Tenet, a chain with $19 billion in annual revenue, but Fetter revealed it's at least being seriously discussed.
Babies with black mothers die twice as often as babies with white or Hispanic mothers, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that's across urban and rural settings.
Why it matters: A main finding of the CDC report was infant mortality rates were highest in rural areas and lowest in large urban areas. But that also makes sense, since people in rural counties are farther away from hospitals and doctors. The more eye-opening data show a gaping disparity in death rates for black infants regardless of where they live.