Hospital chain Community Health Systems has priced a $1 billion sale of debt due in 2019 at 8 percent. The proceeds of the offering will go to a buyback of the same amount of debt due in 2015 and now carrying an interest rate of 8.875 percent.

HCA Holdings has filed the papers for its $5 billion bond offering, all of which will go to redeeming debt due in 2016. The new notes carry interest rates of 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent, well below the more than 9 percent of the old ones.

SEE ALSO: Our earlier post on the big-time upsizing of HCA's plans

UPDATE 8:45 a.m.: Here's the paperwork detailing that HCA will indeed take home more than $4.9 billion from the offering. The extra cash also will go to paying down 2016 debt.

Matt Wirz and Shira Ovide at the Wall Street Journal are reporting that hospital chain HCA yesterday quintupled the size of its debt sale, the proceeds of which it plans to use to pay down bonds coming due in coming years. The massive deal's development is similar to the company's April 2009 offering, which tripled from its initial $500 million goal.

How HCA might spend its new cash isn't clear — an early-morning email to a company spokesman wasn't immediately returned — but there are plenty of options: Debt rating agency Fitch says the company has to redeem debt of $900 million in 2012, $1 billion in 2013 and $600 million in 2014. It also has term loan maturities of $72 million later this year, $445 million in 2012, $2.1 billion in 2013 and $74 million in 2014. If you can grab much of the cash needed to do that in one go...

As to why HCA, which the other day reported disappointing Q2 numbers, is garnering so much interest?

It’s all in the flow. After a dismal patch in June, high yield bond mutual funds have taken in $2.5 billion from retail investors in the past three weeks. That, compounded by the cash the funds get every June and July when a high concentration of bond interest payments come due, created a surge of liquidity looking for a home.

Ambulatory surgery center owner/operator Symbion has closed on its offering of $350 million in senior secured notes, a move that's part of a broader refinancing plan. The Nashville-basd company will use the net proceeds from the sale to pay off its outstanding borrowings under its $350 million senior secured credit line and repurchase $70.8 million of payment-in-kind toggle notes, which let the company pay interest by issuing more debt.