Buy a rural hospital for $100? Investors pick up struggling institutions for pennies

Rural communities with struggling hospitals often turn to outside investors willing to take over their health care centers. Some are willing to sell the hospitals for next to nothing to companies that promise to keep them running. (MEGAN JELINGER/AFP via Getty Images)

ERIN, Tenn. — Kyle Kopec gets a kick out of leading tours through the run-down hospitals his boss is buying, pointing out what he calls relics of poor management left by a revolving door of operators.

For instance, at a hospital in this town of 1,700 about a 90-minute drive northwest from Nashville, the X-ray machine is beyond repair.