UnityPoint’s merger talks with New Mexico health care system called off

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West Des Moines, IA-  One of Iowa’s largest healthcare providers, UnityPoint, is no longer planning a merger with a healthcare system based in New Mexico.

Radio Iowa reports that West Des Moines-based UnityPoint operates 32 hospitals and 280 clinics in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Earlier this year, UnityPoint announced it was negotiating a  merger with New Mexico-based Presbyterian Healthcare Services, which operates nine hospitals.

UnityPoint’s president and CEO has departed, according to a news release. He’d been a VP at the New Mexico system. The new president of UnityPoint has been the system’s chief legal officer for the past two years.

This is the second round of merger talks UnityPoint has started but then tabled. In 2019, negotiations with South Dakota-based Sanford Health stalled.

That merger would have created one of the largest healthcare systems in the country.