Lancaster General Health said Wednesday that it has sold its outpatient renal dialysis center to a Colorado firm for an undisclosed price.

The buyer of the Suburban Outpatient Pavilion facility is DaVita Inc. a Fortune 500 company and national provider of kidney care.

All of the center's 48 clinical employees received employment offers from DaVita Lancaster General Health said.

Dr. Marc H. Weiner of Hypertension & Kidney Specialists will continue as medical director of the center.

No changes in patient care are immediately planned at the center which treats about 90 patients a day.

The center opened in 1994 as part of what then was called the Lancaster General Health Campus.

The 11000–square–foot facility with 30 treatment "pods" will remain on the third floor of the complex's 2110 Harrisburg Pike building.

Lancaster General Health will keep its inpatient dialysis program at Lancaster General Hospital.

Lancaster General Health said the sale comes as it faces increasing costs and declining reimbursements by Medicare and Medicaid and by commercial insurance plans.

It noted that fewer than 5 percent of the country's dialysis centers are owned and operated by hospitals.

DaVita which is Italian for "giving life" posted revenues last year of $6.98 billion more than double that of Armstrong World Industries.

It serves about 145000 patients with chronic kidney failure and end–stage renal disease through more than 1840 dialysis facilities in the United States.

That includes three other centers in Lancaster County.

Hemodialysis is a method of mechanically cleansing the blood outside of the body in order to remove various substances that normally would be cleared by the kidneys.

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