Dive Brief:
- A new study by the Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy has concluded that hospital mergers and other realignments offer "significant" benefits for patients and communities. The study was commissioned by the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals.
- The study concludes that when appropriate mergers don't take place, patients and communities face disruptions in emergency services and other service lapses, as well as possible hospital closures.
- The Federation argues that its research puts to bed arguments that hospital consolidation actually raises prices; studies suggesting such a raising of prices, it says, are based on outdated information from as far back as the 1990s, when market conditions were much different.
Dive Insight:
It's easy for commercially-owned hospital chains to say that nothing bad comes of the mergers in which they engage. But the truth is, even if mergers don't raise hospital prices, they aren't necessarily a good thing for communities, particularly when mergers build giant chains whose management must focus on pleasing HQ rather than meeting community needs. While for-profit hospitals can certainly tend to their communities, mergers intensify the pressure to meet Wall Street objectives. And that, I'd argue, is plenty of reason to be leery of hospital mergers by investor-owned hospitals.