Healthcare Competition and Consolidation The Rise of Health Care Consolidation and What to Do About It (Health Affairs Forefront) Erin C. Fuse Brown, Yashawini Singh, Christopher M. Whaley, Jared Perkins As hospital consolidation continues to meteorically rise, an increasing number of government institutions including the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and Congress, have diverted move resources towards understanding and responding to the negative impacts of these trends....| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
Healthcare Competition and Consolidation Vertical Integration and Market Consolidation in Healthcare: Policy Drivers and Impact on Physicians and Patient Care (Seminars in Colon and Rectal Surgery) Rachel Ekaireb, Anna Yap, and Robert Kucejko Over the past several decades, the healthcare market has become increasingly consolidated. For instance, in the last twelve years alone, the percentage of physicians employed by hospitals or healthcare systems has more than doubled from 26% to 55%. While...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
Healthcare Competition and Consolidation Medicare Advantage and Consolidation’s New Frontier — The Danger of UnitedHealthcare for All (New England Journal of Medicine) Hayden Rooke-Ley, Soleil Shah, and Erin C. Fuse Brown This article describes the recent ransomware attack on Change Healthcare and the ownership structure of UnitedHealth Group, including how much market power it has with medical claims, data analytics, insurance, physicians, PBMs, pharmacies and a bank. The authors note ...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
In late June Novant announced it would abandon attempts to buy two Community Health Systems (CHS) hospitals in North Carolina. This announcement followed a preliminary ruling in Federal District Court for Novant and a subsequent appellate court ruling for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Regardless of the final outcome of the merger, the preliminary Novant win is significant because it represents a successful use of the often cited, rarely successful, “failing firm” defense – which...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
Mergers, Acquisitions and Healthcare Competition Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the U.S. Hospital Sector? (American Economic Association) Zarek Brot-Goldberg, Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig, Lev Klarnet From 2002 to 2020, there were more than 1,100 hospital mergers with a 1% enforcement rate by the FTC resulting in only 13 blocked transactions. The authors of this study speculate low rates of enforcement could be due to factors including budgetary issues and jurisprudence that favors...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
On May 16, 2024, a Federal District Court Judge dismissed a case filed in 2022 by the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS, the trade group representing hospitals in Oregon) against the State of Oregon and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). The suit challenged the law created by Oregon HB 2362, 2021 legislation that required health care entities that meet minimum thresholds to obtain state approval before any mergers or acquisitions. The new law created the Health Car...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
Effects of Market Consolidation Cost, Quality, and Utilization After Hospital-Physician and Hospital-Post Acute Care Vertical Integration: A Systematic Review (Medical Care Research and Review) Alexandra Harris, Sarah Philbin, Brady Post, Neil Jordan, Molly Beestrum, Richard Epstein, Megan McHugh To determine the impact of vertical integration, the authors examine the associations between two types of integration, hospital-physician and hospital-Post Acute Care (PAC), and their effect on cost...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition
Healthcare Cost and Spending Promoting Value-Based Healthcare Decisions: A Case Study of Shared Savings Programs in New Hampshire and Maine (Pepperdine Policy Review) Christopher LaCreta and Lawson Mansell Shared savings programs (SSPs) are an emerging policy solution to combatting the rise of healthcare costs. SSPs enable patients to compare prices and receive incentives for saving money on some elective services. Researchers from Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy recently pu...| The Source on HealthCare Price and Competition