Category Archives: Market Trends

The Trend of Health System Mergers Continues

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Market Trends, Mergers & Acquisitions, Strategic Advantage, Strategic Alignment, Strategic Imperative, Strategic Plan, Strategy Clinical, Strategy Framework, Strategy National, Strategy Sustainable Long Term, Value-Based Contracting, Value-Based Healthcare • Leave a comment

Click to access Industry_Insights_5.24.22.pdf

While healthcare is delivered locally, the business of healthcare
is regional, and the regions are only getting bigger. Hospital
and health system mergers alike have continued to shift from
local to regional, and the recently announced merger between Advocate Aurora
Health and Atrium Health clearly highlights that the regions are only getting
bigger.


Advocate Aurora, with a presence in Illinois and Wisconsin, and Atrium Health,
with a presence in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will
combine to create a $27 billion health system that will span six states and make it
one of the leading healthcare delivery systems in the country. The combined
organization, which will transition to a new brand, Advocate Health, will operate
67 hospitals and over 1,000 sites of care, employ nearly 150,000 teammates, and
serve 5.5 million patients. Together, Advocate Health will become the 6th largest
system in the country behind Kaiser Permanente, HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit
Health, Ascension, and Providence.


We have seen a number of large health systems come together recently,
including Intermountain Healthcare + SCL Health to create a $15 billion revenue
system, Spectrum Health + Beaumont ($14 billion), NorthShore University Health
System + Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare ($5 billion), LifePoint Health + Kindred
Healthcare ($14 billion), and Jefferson Health + Einstein Healthcare Network ($8
billion).


The exact reasoning for each merger differs slightly, but one of the common
threads across all is scale. But not scale in the traditional M&A sense. Rather,
scale in covered lives; scale in physician infrastructure and alignment; scale in
clinical and operational capabilities; scale in technology, innovation, and
partnerships with non-traditional players; scale for capital access; and scale for
insurance risk to compete in a value-based world. It is no longer the strong
acquiring the weak. Rather, strong players are coming together to gain scale to
face the headwinds in a unified manner.

For Advocate Aurora and Atrium, coming together is about leveraging their combined clinical excellence,
advancing data analytics capabilities and digital consumer infrastructure, improving affordability, driving health equity, creating a next-generation workforce, research, and environmental sustainability. Together, they have pledged $2 billion to disrupt the root causes of health inequities across underserved communities and create more than 20,000 new jobs.


Both Advocate Aurora and Atrium are no strangers to mergers. Advocate and Aurora came together in 2018, and prior to that Advocate was intending to merge with NorthShore before being blocked due to anti-trust. Atrium has grown over the years, merging with systems such as Navicent Health in Georgia in 2018, Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina 2020, and Floyd Health System in Georgia in 2021. In the newly proposed merger, Advocate Aurora and Atrium are coming together via a joint operating arrangement where each entity will be responsible for their own liabilities and maintain ownership of their respective assets but operate together under the new parent entity and board. This may allow the combined entity more flexibility in local decision-making. The current CEOs, Jim Skogsbergh and Eugene Woods will serve as co-CEOs for the first 18 months, at which point Skogsbergh will retire, and Woods will take over as the sole CEO.


Mergers can come in various shapes and structures, but the driving forces behind consolidation are not unique. With the need to compete in value-based care, adequately manage risk, gain scale across covered lives, physicians, and points of access, successfully deliver affordable high-quality care, and the need to deal with the vertical and horizontal consolidation of the large-scale payers, the markets that health systems operate in must be large enough to be effective and relevant. We fully expect to see more of these larger scale health system mergers in the near term.


The physical delivery of healthcare is local, but, again, the business of healthcare is not; it is regional, and the regions are only getting bigger.

6 hospital, health system deals called off this year

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-transactions-and-valuation/6-hospital-health-system-deals-called-off-this-year.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

Six health system and hospital deals have been canceled so far this year, whether it be a scrapped merger or acquisition or the unwinding of a partnership.

1. Proposed Dartmouth Health, GraniteOne Health merger canceled
Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health and Manchester, N.H.-based GraniteOne Health are canceling their proposed merger after the state Attorney General’s Office said the move would violate the New Hampshire constitution, according to VTDigger.

2. Hackensack Meridian, Englewood withdraw merger plans
Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health and Englewood (N.J.) Health have dropped their merger plans, a spokesperson for Hackensack Meridian told Becker’s.

3. Canyon Atlantic ends bid to buy 2 Pennsylvania hospitals
The prospective buyer of two shuttered Pennsylvania hospitals has filed a motion to end litigation to purchase the facilities, The Daily Local reported March 8.

4. Lifespan, Care New England withdraw merger application
The boards of Lifespan and Care New England — both based in Providence, R.I. — have decided to withdraw their merger application after the Federal Trade Commission made an announcement Feb. 17 it would file suit to block the deal.

5. Hoag, Providence to split: 5 things to know
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif., and Providence, a Catholic health system based in Renton, Wash., said they would end their affiliation in January.

6. Trinity Health won’t buy Tower Health hospital
Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic has abandoned its plan to buy Tower Health’s Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Charlotte, NC-based Atrium Health and Illinois- and Wisconsin-based Advocate Aurora Health announce plans to merge

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Competition, Cultural Fit, Culture, Culture Compatibility, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Share, Market Trends, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior • Leave a comment

The combined health system will become the sixth largest nationwide, with $27B in revenue and 67 hospitals across six Midwest and Southeast states. The system will be based in Charlotte, and known as Advocate Health, though Atrium will continue to use its name in its markets.

Atrium CEO Gene Woods is slated to ultimately lead the combined entity, after an 18-month co-CEO arrangement with Advocate Aurora CEO Jim Skogsbergh. While the cross-market merger is unlikely to create antitrust concerns about increased pricing leverage, the Biden administration has been making noises about applying stricter scrutiny to the impact of health system consolidation on labor market competition.  

The Gist: Earlier this year, Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare and Colorado-based SCL Health combined to create a 33-hospital, $14B health system, which became the 11th largest nationwide. While these mega-mergers of regional systems can realize cost savings from back-office synergies, there is a significant opportunity to create larger “platforms” of care to win consumer loyalty, deploy digital capabilities, attract talent, and become more desirable partners for nontraditional players like Amazon, Walmart, and One Medical.

It will be critical to watch whether the governance and cultural challenges that often hinder health system mergers come into play here. Advocate Aurora has had two prospective mergers fall apart in recent years, the first with Chicago-based NorthShore University HealthSystem, and the second with Michigan-based Beaumont Health (who subsequently finalized a merger with Spectrum Health earlier this year). 

But the combination with Atrium is structured as a joint operating agreement, essentially creating a new superstructure atop the two legacy systems. This may allow the combined entity more flexibility in local decision-making, but the ultimate question will be how the combined entity will create value for consumers. Time will tell.

Intermountain Healthcare completes its merger with SCL Health

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Salt Lake City-based Intermountain and Broomfield, CO-based SCL Health have now formed a 33-hospital, $14B nonprofit health system, which immediately becomes the 11th largest nationwide. The system will operate across seven states under the Intermountain brand, although the SCL hospitals will keep their legacy names and Catholic affiliation. Regulators signed off on the interstate merger after the systems agreed not to close any locations or services.  

The Gist: Intermountain has been trying to build scale across the Mountain West in the last few years, having recently come up short in an attempt to merge with South Dakota-based Sanford Health. 

The SCL deal will allow Intermountain to expand its SelectHealth insurance plan and integrated care model into the fast-growing Denver metro area, as well as into Kansas and Montana. As with any merger, the difficult work of combining cultures and demonstrating meaningful value for patients and consumers lies ahead.  

Optum looks to acquire Houston-based Kelsey-Seybold Clinic

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According to unnamed Axios sources, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum has signed a deal to acquire the independent 500-physician multispecialty group, which operates more than 30 clinic locations and one of the largest ambulatory surgery centers in Texas. With more than 41,000 enrollees, Kelsey-Seybold controls 8 percent of the lucrative Medicare Advantage market in the Houston metro area.

In January 2020, private equity firm TPG Capital made a minority investment in the 73-year-old group, valuing it at $1.3B, to help expand its footprint. Should the current deal come to fruition, Kelsey-Seybold’s physicians would join the ranks of over 60K physicians owned by, or exclusively affiliated with, Optum.

The Gist: Fresh off last year’s acquisition of 700-physician, Boston-based Atrius Health, Optum is continuing its buying spree of large physician groups with a history of managing risk. It will be interesting to see how quickly UnitedHealth Group can combine its Optum-owned physician assets with its commercial insurance platform to create a compelling, lower-cost option for employers and Medicare Advantage enrollees—building on the model of its Harmony network in Southern California.

Of note, Kelsey-Seybold and United Healthcare have offered a co-branded insurance product for years, and UHG executives have said they plan to roll out Harmony in Texas and Seattle next. 

Kelsey-Seybold is one a dwindling number of very large, independent multispecialty groups, and its sale to Optum may have other groups wondering about their ability to remain independent in an increasingly concentrated healthcare market.  

Private equity-backed buyouts have physicians concerned

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/private-equity-backed-buyouts-have-physicians-concerned.html?utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter

The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are seeking comments on ways merger guidelines should be updated, and physicians are raising concerns about private equity-backed buyouts of provider practices. 

The FTC and the Justice Department announced in January that they’re seeking to revamp merger guidelines for businesses. Comments on how to “modernize the merger guidelines to better detect and prevent anticompetitive deals,” can be submitted to the agencies through April 21. 

Comments are pouring in from physicians. Many of the comments are anonymous, but the commenters self-identify as physicians. 

The physicians’ top concern are private equity-backed buyouts, according to an analysis by Law360. They’re also concerned by the profit-first attitude of healthcare and consolidation in the industry, according to the report. 

The commenters raised many concerns with private equity groups, saying they “put profits over patients” and “stifle the voices of physicians.”

The comments are coming in as private equity firms continue to buy up physician practices. 

Private equity firms acquired 59 physician practices in 2013, and that number increased to 136 practices by 2016, according to a research letter published in JAMA. 

Is it the beginning of the end of CON? 

Posted on by • Posted in Ambulatory Care Services, Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASC), Certificate of Need, Competition, Consumer Focus, Consumer Needs, Consumer Preferences, Consumer-Centered Care Pathway, Consumer-Centric, Consumerism, Disruption, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Leadership, Leadership Vision, Market Outlook, Market Trends, Market Uncertainty, Private Equity, Strategy • Leave a comment
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We’re picking up on a growing concern among health system leaders that many states with “certificate of need” (CON) laws in effect are on the cusp of repealing them. CON laws, currently in place in 35 states and the District of Columbia, require organizations that want to construct new or expand existing healthcare facilities to demonstrate community need for the additional capacity, and to obtain approval from state regulatory agencies. While the intent of these laws is to prevent duplicative capacity, reduce unnecessary utilization, and control cost growth, critics claim that CON requirements reduce competition—and free market-minded state legislators, particularly in the South and Midwest, have made them a target. 
 
One of our member systems located in a state where repeal is being debated asked us to facilitate a scenario planning session around CON repeal with system and physician leaders. Executives predicted that key specialty physician groups would quickly move to build their own ambulatory surgery centers, accelerating shift of surgical volume away from the hospital.

The opportunity to expand outpatient procedure and long-term care capacity would also fuel investment from private equity, which have already been picking up in the market. An out-of-market health system might look to build microhospitals, or even a full-service inpatient facility, which would be even more disruptive.

CON repeal wasn’t all downside, however; the team identified adjacent markets they would look to enter as well. The takeaway from our exercise: in addition to the traditional response of flexing lobbying influence to shape legislative change, the system must begin to deliver solutions to consumers that are comprehensive, convenient, and competitively priced—the kind of offerings that might flood the market if CON laws were lifted. 

Even the largest health systems dwarfed by industry giants

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https://mailchi.mp/f6328d2acfe2/the-weekly-gist-the-grizzly-bear-conflict-manager-edition?e=d1e747d2d8

Insurers, retailers, and other healthcare companies vastly exceed health system scale, dwarfing even the largest hospital systems. The graphic above illustrates how the largest “mega-systems” lag other healthcare industry giants, in terms of gross annual revenue. 

Amazon and Walmart, retail behemoths that continue to elbow into the healthcare space, posted 2021 revenue that more than quintuples that of the largest health system, Kaiser Permanente. The largest health systems reported increased year-over-year revenue in 2021, largely driven by higher volumes, as elective procedures recovered from the previous year’s dip.

However, according to a recent Kaufman Hall report, while health systems, on average, grew topline revenue by 15 percent year-over-year, they face rising expenses, and have yet to return to pre-pandemic operating margins. 

Meanwhile, the larger companies depicted above, including Walmart, Amazon, CVS Health, and UnitedHealth Group, are emerging from the pandemic in a position of financial strength, and continue to double down on vertical integration strategies, configuring an array of healthcare assets into platform businesses focused on delivering value directly to consumers.

Higher prices correlated with lower mortality in competitive hospital markets

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Competition, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Market Trends, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Outcomes, Quality, Quality Measures, Quality of Care, Quality Reporting • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f6328d2acfe2/the-weekly-gist-the-grizzly-bear-conflict-manager-edition?e=d1e747d2d8

A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper found that higher-priced hospitals in competitive markets were associated with lower patient mortality—flying in the face of the common policy narrative that higher-priced care is not higher quality. However, in more concentrated, less-competitive healthcare markets (in which over two-thirds of the nation’s hospitals are located), the study found no correlation between price and quality. Authors of the study analyzed patient outcomes from more than 200K admissions among commercially insured patients, transported by ambulance to about 1,800 hospitals between 2007 and 2014.   

The Gist: As hospitals have consolidated, prices have risen by about 30 percent between 2015 to 2019, leading policy experts and regulators to search for ways to rein in price inflation. 

While there continues to be widespread consensus that industry consolidation has resulted in unsustainable cost growth, the new study’s findings bring a bit of welcome nuance around impact on quality and outcomes to an otherwise one-sided, price-centric policy narrative.