UNC Health's failed deal with Atrium was a windfall for lawyers, consultants
UNC Health Care hired 13 consulting firms to help guide the Chapel Hill nonprofit through a complicated business deal with Atrium Health that fell apart earlier this month.
UNC Health Care's total bill for the consulting services came to nearly $6.6 million, representing one year's worth of billable hours.
The expense summary provided by UNC Health Care shows that the organization begin paying outside consultants in March 2017. That was six months before UNC announced it was entering into talks with Charlotte's Carolinas HealthCare, later rebranded as Atrium, to form one the nation's largest hospital networks.
UNC's total expenses cover nearly $6.4 million in payments to 13 firms, plus a reimbursement of $192,647.17 to the UNC Board of Governors, which also retained legal and economic experts to vet the deal and billed UNC Health Care.
Ultimately the deal fell apart because it would have required UNC Health Care, a state-owned asset, to cede control to the larger partner, Atrium.
In addition to three law firms, UNC Health Care hired two firms that specialize in communications, messaging and branding. One of those, Purple Strategies of Alexandria, Va., collected $936,020.03, the third highest earner on the failed deal.
The largest beneficiary was Chartis, a health care analytics firm based in Chicago, which accounted for nearly $2.2 million of UNC's total expense.
The Boston Consulting Group, which specializes in management consulting, reaped $1.7 million.
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, a Winston-Salem law firm that last year combined with UK-based Bond Dickinson, accounted for $157,992. The combined firm, Womble Bond Dickinson, was paid $187,770. McDermott, Will & Emery, a law firm based in Chicago, received $489,942.
The sharing of confidential information amounted to the cost of an automobile. The negotiations cost $34,773.41 in encrypted digital data transfer services, provided by Intralinks, a New York company that specializes in virtual data rooms.
Phil Bridges, a spokesman for UNC Health Care, said no public funds were used to pay the consultants.
This story was originally published March 16, 2018 at 6:42 PM with the headline "UNC Health's failed deal with Atrium was a windfall for lawyers, consultants."