Hospice's four-year turf war ends

A four-year turf battle between two of the largest hospice providers on the Gulf Coast is over.

The result: Clearwater-based Suncoast Hospice won't open a facility in Manatee County after all. Suncoast withdrew its state application for a Bradenton office last month, the final move in the saga that pitted the hospice against Lakewood Ranch-based TideWell Hospice.

Both hospices, like most others statewide, are nonprofits that provide end-of-life care for terminally ill patients. It's a big business; TideWell's annual budget, for instance, is approaching $100 million, while Suncoast's budget already surpassed that mark.

Suncoast, which won several rounds of the legal battle in 2010, ended its quest to open a Manatee County branch because the endeavor became too costly, spokeswoman Louise Cleary says. “We are going to refocus our attention on Pinellas County,” says Cleary.

TideWell officials called the application withdrawal a victory for simplicity, in that it allows TideWell to market its services and carry out its mission with clarity. “Our feeling from the start has been that there wasn't a need for another hospice in the area,” TideWell spokesman David Glaser tells Coffee Talk. “It was potentially confusing to patients and their families.”

Nonetheless, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees the certificate of need process for hospices, ruled in favor of Suncoast in early 2010. And that decision was upheld by a Florida administrate law judge last summer.