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FTC Abandons Challenge To $599M Philly Hospital Deal
Law360 (March 1, 2021, 5:53 PM EST) The Federal Trade Commission has acknowledged its first loss of a hospital merger case in years by dropping its effort to stop the proposed $599 million tie-up of Philadelphia-area health care systems Jefferson Health and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network.
The FTC has already been turned away twice in the challenge, first at the district court Dec. 8 and then three weeks later when the Third Circuit refused to issue an emergency stay on the deal while the agency appealed. As of Monday, the agency had updated the webpage tracking its in-house challenge to reflect a 4-0 vote to drop that appeal.
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The past year has been ripe with antitrust activity in the health sector, with ripple effects likely to spill into the near future and beyond.
The Federal Trade Commission is poised to get even more aggressive in enforcement against anticompetitive deals in the years to come, legal experts told Healthcare Dive, while state legislatures are eyeing ways to increase scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions in their own backyards.
The FTC said last year it was expanding a program that helps it police future and already-consummated deals. And just last year the agency made its first challenge to a hospital tie-up after a three-year lull.
Feb 5, 2021 3:00pm
The American Hospital Association is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a new policy from UnitedHealthcare for diagnostic labs they worry could confuse consumers. (jetcityimage/Getty)
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is calling for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to probe a new policy from UnitedHealthcare on coverage for diagnostic tests and to explore rate hikes for temporary nurses.
The AHA’s letter to the FTC (PDF) Thursday comes nearly a month after the agency announced a study into the impact of physician group and healthcare facility consolidation and is seeking data from six major insurers including UnitedHealthcare.
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Policing hospital mergers has become a top enforcement priority among federal antitrust enforcers. In 2020 alone, the FTC sued to block three hospital transactions (Jefferson/Einstein, Methodist Le Bonheur/Tenet and Hackensack Meridian/Englewood) and submitted letters to state regulators opposing two transactions (Community/Hendrick and Community/Shannon), while the DOJ has challenged one transaction (Geisinger/Evangelical).
On December 8, the FTC lost the first of its 2020 hospital merger challenges. United States District Judge Gerald Pappert denied the FTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the combination of Philadelphia-area Thomas Jefferson University and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. The FTC quickly appealed, but the Third Circuit denied the FTC’s motion for an injunction pending appeal. (The FTC has since won a second merger challenge: On December 23, Methodist Le Bonheur abandoned its planned acquisition of two Tene