Health system mergers increase prices by 5.2%: Study
Becker's Healthcare April 25, 2024
There have been 1,164 mergers among health systems between 2000 and 2020, and a recent study found those transactions increased prices by 5.2%.
The study, a collaboration between researchers at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University, Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison published in American Economic Review: Insights, analyzed data from 1,164 mergers among the nation’s 5,000 acute-care hospitals between 2000 and 2020.
The FTC challenged only 13, or 1%, of those mergers. However, the agency could have flagged 238, or 20%, of mergers as likely to reduce competition and increase prices based on the standard screening tools available during that time, researchers wrote.
The researchers found that mergers the FTC could have...