Tag Archives: Competition

ACA Marketplace Premiums Grew More Rapidly In Areas With Monopoly Insurers Than In Areas With More Competition

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https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.0054?utm_term=Jessica+Van+Parys+of+Hunter+College%2C+City+University+of+New+York&utm_campaign=Health+Affairs%5Cu2019+August+issue%3A++Medicaid%2C+Markets+%2526+More&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email&cm_mmc=Act-On+Software-_-email-_-Health+Affairs%5Cu2019+August+issue%3A++Medicaid%2C+Markets+%2526+More-_-Jessica+Van+Parys+of+Hunter+College%2C+City+University+of+New+York

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 It pays to have an insurance monopoly
Also from Health Affairs: The level of competition among insurance companies has affected Affordable Care Act premiums more than any other factor.

By the numbers: Premiums are 50% higher this year in areas with just one insurer than in areas with two insurers.

  • “The presence of a monopolist insurer was the strongest, and most precise, predictor of 2018 premiums,” the study says.
  • Other factors commonly associated with higher premiums — like hospital concentration and the health of the people who live there — showed significantly smaller effects.

How it works: Jessica Van Parys, the Hunter College economics professor who conducted the study, suggests that insurers underpriced their ACA offerings in the first few years to capture market share, then raised their prices over the years.

  • Costs and regulatory uncertainty largely kept new competitors from entering those monopolized markets.

 

HHS proposes allowing some drug importation, but impact would be limited

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HHS proposes allowing some drug importation, but impact would be limited

Money pile and medicine pills representing medical expenses

Nevertheless, the proposed policy could take Martin Shkreli-like practices “out of the ballgame,” expert says.

Regulators could allow importation of certain drugs in an effort to keep prices down, under a proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services.

On Thursday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar requested that Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb create a working group to find how to safely import drugs from abroad in cases when their US-made marketed equivalents undergo dramatic price increases.

However, experts said the effect of such a policy on prices – if it passes – will be limited.

Azar pointed to the now infamous example of the toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim, whose price manufacturer Turing Pharmaceuticals increased from $13.50 per pill to $750 in 2015, drawing nationwide scorn for Turing and its CEO, Martin Shkreli. Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison in April following his August 2017 conviction on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. Turing, which has since changed its name to Vyera Pharmaceuticals, is currently losing money, STAT reported, and shareholders will vote Friday on a proposal to change the name again, to Phoenixus.

Several political leaders have proposed allowing importation of drugs. In May, Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill that would allow importation of drugs from Canada, though HHS must still certify the law. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also introduced a bill in the Senate, S. 469, The Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act, that would allow the same, with cosponsorship from several Senate Democrats. The bill would wholesalers, pharmacies and individuals to import a range of medications.

However, the HHS proposal is more narrow, focusing specifically on drugs that have seen significant price increases. Gerard Anderson, professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, and several colleagues made a similar proposal in a paper published in JAMA in February 2016. Under their proposal, GlaxoSmithKline – the original manufacturer of Daraprim – would be able to import the drug from the United Kingdom, where it sells for less than $1 per tablet. The paper compared the proposal to FDA allowances for importation during shortages of critical medications.

Still, Anderson said in a phone interview that the HHS proposal will not likely have a broader spillover effect on drug prices, but will only affect the specific drugs that are included. “For a very narrow subset of medications, it could take the Martin Shkrelis out of the ballgame because these drugs are very inexpensive in other countries,” he said.

In addition to Turing, other companies that have become notorious for raising drug prices include Shkreli’s prior company, Retrophin, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Questcor Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Acthar Gel from $1,650 per vial to $23,269 in 2007, and the price has risen to $38,892 since Questcor’s 2014 acquisition by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. More recently, larger drug companies have also taken heat for smaller price increases. Pfizer backed down from a plan to raise the prices of about 100 of its medications after criticism from the Trump administration, while Novartis and Merck & Co. have pledged to limit price increases as well.

The government stipulating what constitutes a “dramatic price increase” could create a de facto price ceiling that drugmakers would stay under when changing their prices, said Lev Gerlovin, vice president at Boston-based consultancy Charles River Associates, in a phone interview. It’s hard to assess whether that would have a material effect on the industry, given that the ceiling may be greater than what most manufacturers already tend to do as a matter of course. However, while cautioning that he is not a Washington observer, Gerlovin said likely industry pushback citing patient safety concerns makes the proposal appear unlikely to pass.

 

 

What’s Driving Health Care Costs?

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https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20180625.872430/full/?utm_term=Read%20More%20%2526gt%3B%2526gt%3B&utm_campaign=Health%20Affairs%20Sunday%20Update&utm_content=email&utm_source=2018-06-24&utm_medium=email&cm_mmc=Act-On%20Software-_-email-_-ACA%20Round-Up%3B%20Health%20Care%20Costs%3B%20Medicaid%20Expansion%3B%20Prescription%20Drug%20Monitoring%20Programs-_-Read%20More%20%2526gt%3B%2526gt%3B

Value-based payment (VBP) models are an effort to rein in the growth of health care costs and improve quality. However, it’s unclear what overall impact VBP models are having on health care costs. Even though health care is provided at the local level, most evaluations examine health care spending at the national level. To address this disconnect, we conducted quantitative and qualitative market-level assessments. Our goals were to examine the impact of population-based, value-based care within a market; identify what measurable factors were associated with differing costs; and understand how business leaders are thinking about value-based care and cost reduction.

Leavitt Partners, the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), and McManis Consulting, with participation from Mark McClellan at Duke University, conducted three mixed-methods studies:

  1. “Growth of Population-Based Payments Is Not Associated with a Decrease in Market-Level Cost Growth, Yet” examined the impact of population-based VBP on per-beneficiary-per-year (PBPY) health care spending and quality of care. The study used growth curve modeling and fixed-effects regression analyses of Medicare and commercial claims data.
  2. “Market Factors Associated with Medicare Costs and Cost Growth” examined which market factors are correlated with PBPY health care costs and cost growth within a market using growth curve modeling. The study used and aggregated multiple data sets from public and private sources.
  3. “What Is Driving Total Cost of Care? An Analysis of Factors Influencing Total Cost of Care in U.S. Health Care Markets” combined qualitative interviews conducted during site visits of nine markets and the quantitative findings from the studies above to understand factors that may be influencing total cost of care in US health care markets.

Key findings from the studies include:

  • Based on data from 2015, there was no association between an increase in population-based VBP and slowing of health care costs in a given market. Our study did not include episode-based payments.
  • Health care leaders across markets believe further changes to payment and delivery models are coming. Less clear is what, or who, will be the catalyst to push further change.
  • Some stakeholders expressed stronger support for other types of VBP models, including episode-based models and models that address the needs of specific patient groups.
  • The question of “what type of competition” in a market may be more important than “how much” competition. Lower-cost markets featured competition among a few health systems with well-aligned physician practices and geographic coverage across their market.
  • Lower-cost markets appear to benefit from organized mechanisms, including state-sponsored or endorsed reporting agencies, for more transparent sharing of information on provider quality and costs.Based on quantitative and qualitative evidence, the studies contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of competition, integration, and transparency on health care costs in a market. Below, we summarize findings from the three mixed-method studies and provide some policy implications.

Population-Based VBP Models Are Not Lowering Market-Level Health Care Costs … Yet

VBP dates back to 2005 with the Physician Group Practice Demonstration. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) significantly accelerated the proliferation of VBP models with the creation of the Medicare Shared Savings Program(MSSP) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which was tasked with developing and testing innovative new models. Commercial VBP arrangements have also taken hold in the years since the ACA’s passage.

Given the growth of VBP, we wanted to examine whether, in the first few years following the ACA, these models were influencing the total cost of care. We used Medicare data from 2012 to 2015 and commercial data from 2012 to 2014 to assess the early impact of these models. We restricted our study to population-based VBPs, which included models with upside risk only (shared savings), both upside and downside risk, and global budgets, but excluded episode-based (bundled) payments.

We did not find a statistical relationship between the level of penetration of population-based VBPs in a market and a decline in health care costs for Medicare or commercial payers. Nor did we find an improvement in quality. When we limited our analysis to just those markets with higher levels of population-based VBP penetration (at least 30 percent), our results suggested a very modest, not statistically significant, market-level decrease in cost growth. Despite this null finding, our results provide an important baseline for future research.

Possible Explanations

There are several potential explanations for the null findings. For one, our study period (2012–15) may simply have been too early to see signs of population-based VBP lowering health care costs. Although today 561 MSSP accountable care organizations (ACOs) (the largest of Medicare’s ACO programs) cover 10.5 million beneficiaries, at the beginning of our study period in 2012 and 2013, only 220 MSSP ACOs covered 3.2 million beneficiaries. Many interviewees told us not enough lives were covered under VBP. Indeed, in some markets, less than 1 percent of lives were part of a VBP arrangement.

Second, although participation in population-based VBP models is growing, few models involve the provider taking on downside risk. As of 2018, the majority (82 percent) of MSSP ACOs were in the non-risk-bearing Track 1, which means they share in savings if they spend less money than their assigned benchmark, but they will not incur financial losses if they spend more than the benchmark. Our site visits found that although different markets had varying levels of population-based VBP activity, no market had significant numbers of providers participating in downside risk. Several interviewees stressed the need to take incremental steps to more risk.

Fee-for-service payment remains quite profitable for many providers and health systems. Even for those that have begun to take on risk-based contracts, fee-for-service payment represents the majority of total revenue. As long as the status quo remains lucrative, it’s difficult to make the business case for why a provider should undertake the effort to switch to a value-based focus that may lead to a reduction in use and total revenue.

Still, several interviewees said they believed the move toward paying for value would continue, even if there’s some uncertainty over whether Medicare or private payers will lead the movement. It’s possible that when VBP models outweigh fee-for-service payments in a market, we’ll reach a “tipping point” and health care cost growth will decline. Many interviewees expressed enthusiasm for other VBP models, such as those based on episodes of care (bundled payments) and those designed for specific populations (for example, the frail elderly). These models may make more sense for specialty providers who perform a certain type of procedure or care for a certain type of patient.

Other Market Factors

If these initial population-based VBPs results don’t show a relationship to health care cost growth, then which market-level factors do correlate? For our second quantitative analysis, we used a variety of public and private data sources to examine the relationship among several market-level factors beyond value-based payment and Medicare costs and cost growth between 2007 and 2015. All the factors together explained 82 percent of variation in baseline Medicare costs (Exhibit 1). 

The prevalence of chronic diseases was the most influential predictor of market costs, accounting for 41.5 percent of the variance. Hospital quality metrics, market socioeconomic status, and the concentration of hospitals and insurers also helped explain market-level costs.

Using these same factors to predict Medicare cost growth was less fruitful, explaining only 27 percent of the variation in Medicare cost growth—substantially less than the 82 percent of baseline costs. As Exhibit 2 shows, a much weaker association exists between chronic disease prevalence and Medicare cost growth. Significant additional research should be done to identify factors that predict cost growth.

These findings matter for several reasons. First, they reinforce efforts currently underway to contain costs, including strategies to prevent and better manage chronic conditions, reduce hospital readmissions, and reduce the number of individuals without insurance. Second, although we know less about what drives health care cost growth in a market, meaningfully reducing spending in a market relies on developing strategies that target cost growth, instead of baseline costs. More research that focuses on what’s driving cost growth is needed.

The Role Of Competition And Transparency On Costs

The interviews we conducted add insights into these market-level findings. We identified two distinguishing characteristics of higher- and lower-cost markets: type of competition in the market and degree of transparency in the market. We recognize that while there are some common lessons, health care markets differ significantly and their approaches to care, costs, and VBP models will vary.

Competition

We know competition can help drive down costs and increase quality in health care markets. However, how much competition, and what type, seems to make a difference. For example, we found that the lower-cost markets in our nine site visits had at least one integrated delivery system. Consolidation in these markets had resulted in two to four health systems with geographic coverage across the market. In these markets, physicians were generally employed by the health system or worked in close alignment with it. Health plan competition matters as well, particularly with respect to innovation in new payment and care delivery models. Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, two of the lowest-cost markets, both had competitive health plan landscapes.

Conversely, the markets we visited with less integration and seemingly more provider competition actually had higher costs. These included Los Angeles, California (which had higher Medicare costs only), Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. One reason for this may be that there is less focus on addressing unnecessary use in these markets.

Transparency

Transparency is often cited as a strategy that will help contain costs. Similar to competition, the type of transparency effort matters. We found that some lower-cost markets seemed to benefit from organized transparency mechanisms, including state-sponsored or endorsed reporting agencies and employer coalitions that made information on provider quality and costs publicly available. For example, in 2005, the Minnesota Medical Association and health plans in the state together formed MN Community Measure, a nonprofit organization tasked with the collection and dissemination of data on the quality and cost of providers across the state. Today, providers are required to submit data to the organization. Our interviewees expressed optimism but acknowledged more work is needed to optimize consumer-oriented transparency tools, which research has so far shown to have had only minimal use.

Policy Recommendations

Our research led us to three primary policy recommendations to help improve health care quality and lower costs (for additional ones, see the fullstudies).

  1. Continue movement toward payment models that increase financial incentives to manage total cost of care and closely monitor the impact of doing so because our findings show that the majority of payments in a market continue to flow through fee-for-service, instead of value-based arrangements. Experiments should continue with population-based VBP models but should not be confined exclusively to these models. Episode-based payment models, for example, may be better suited to certain types of providers who perform a certain procedure (for example, a knee replacement) instead of care for a general population of patients.
  2. Balance the benefits of competition with the benefits of integration. The lower-cost markets we studied had competition among two and four systems with well-organized provider networks that had been developed through vertical integration or strong alignment of physician practices. Most of the lower-cost markets also had an integrated delivery system—with vertically integrated health plan, hospital, and physician capabilities—as a competitor in the market.
  3. Support more transparent sharing of information on health care cost and quality within markets. Lower-cost markets in the qualitative study had organized mechanisms for the sharing of information on health care cost and quality, whether through employer coalitions, statewide reporting agencies, or both.

Although differences exist among each health care market, all markets can act to improve quality and reduce costs. Our studies suggest several actions different stakeholders in each market can take to improve care for their populations.

 

 

AT&T, Time Warner, and the Future of Health Care

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2018/att-time-warner-and-future-health-care?omnicid=EALERT%25%25jobid%25%25&mid=%25%25emailaddr%25%25

AT&T Time Warner Merger

Policymakers and private actors should not interpret a federal court’s AT&T and Time Warner ruling as an unconditional green light for vertical integration in health care.

The need for change in the U.S. health care system is obvious, but whether vertical integration is the change we need remains to be determined.

The recent federal district court ruling allowing the merger of AT&T and Time Warner — a case of so-called vertical integration — will likely encourage similar unions throughout the U.S. economy, including in health care. Nevertheless, a close look at the court’s decision, and at the wide variety of vertical health care mergers under way, suggests that policymakers and private actors should not interpret the court’s ruling as an unconditional green light for vertical integration in health care, or any other sector.

Vertical integration typically involves the combination of entities operating on different parts of a supply chain in the production of a particular product. Manufacturers of tires, for example, are part of the supply chain that results in a finished automobile. Similarly, ambulatory physician services are sometimes seen as an input on the supply chain of more advanced hospital services. The acquisition of physician practices by hospitals is often characterized as vertical integration.

Some antitrust experts question whether the analogy between manufactured products and health care delivery is accurate. Independent physicians, for example, often work within hospitals and help to produce their “products.” Nevertheless, there are clear differences between mergers across the same types of health care organizations, like hospitals, and those between different types of providers, like physicians and hospitals.

The AT&T/Time Warner case was the first time in 40 years that the government has taken a proposed vertical integration to court, and many commentators have noted that antitrust theory with respect to vertical integration could use some updating. In the meantime, however, Judge Richard Leon’s 172-page opinion seems to have relied on traditional antitrust considerations: would the merger increase or decrease competition, and thereby increase or decrease consumer welfare? His ruling rested heavily on what he viewed as the government’s failure to supply evidence that the merger would have adverse effects. In other words, if the government had produced more convincing data, the ruling could have gone the other way.

Judge Leon’s ruling may be appealed and, if so, may not stand. But if it does, what are its implications for vertical integration in health care? Simply put, the facts matter. And unfortunately, the facts about vertical integration in health care are obscure, and likely to vary enormously according to the details of the merger and from market to market.

Evidence on the effects of horizontal health care mergers has grown considerably in recent years, and generally shows that they increase prices. But studies of vertical health care mergers are much less common. Perhaps the most relevant experience concerns long-standing integrated health systems, such as Kaiser Permanente, Intermountain, Geisinger, and a handful of similar organizations.

Widely regarded as industry leaders in quality and efficiency, these systems seem to demonstrate the benefits of vertical integration: they are able to coordinate services across different types of providers, and, when incentives encourage it, they can easily substitute less expensive services (e.g., ambulatory care) for more expensive ones (e.g., hospital care). However, whether the experiences of these integrated systems are generalizable to the current flock of mergers is unclear. Each of these venerable organizations has a unique history and culture that have shaped its performance over decades.

Studies of vertical integration will have to take into account the type of merger under consideration. The most common type of vertical integration seems to be the acquisition of physician groups — both primary care and specialty — by hospitals. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of hospital-employed U.S. physicians increased from 95,000 to 155,000.

But health care is witnessing a variety of other types of vertical integration. Insurers are buying physician groups, as in the case of UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition of parts of DaVita’s physician network. Drug store chains are buying insurers, as in the case of CVS’s purchase of Aetna. And integrated health systems like Partners HealthCare are proposing to buy insurers like Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

The effects of these varied mergers will depend on the types of services being combined and the markets affected. From both a societal and legal standpoint, the facts matter.

For example, it turns out that the CVS-Aetna merger includes an important horizontal union between Part D health plans owned independently by CVS and Aetna. Part D health plans provide drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. In recent testimony before the California Department of Insurance, economist Richard Scheffler showed that in a number of markets, the merger of these Part D plans would significantly reduce competition, and thereby, could potentially increase the prices of drug coverage for Medicare patients. Fear of consolidation among Part D plans has caused the American Medical Association to oppose CVS’s acquisition of Aetna.

Adding to the uncertainty surrounding these questions is the unique nature of the health market, in which governments are the largest purchasers and consumers often don’t know the prices or value of the products they buy. Traditional competition in local markets sometimes results in radically increasing prices and costs, as providers pile on new technologies and facilities and compete for star physicians in an effort to attract customers. And many parts of health care already have a high degree of consolidation that limits price competition.  The result is a level of dysfunction that has created an almost universal cry for radical disruption of the status quo.

Health care is a conundrum on many levels, and how and whether to regulate vertical integration among its varied components may turn out to be another one. The need for change is obvious. Whether vertical integration is the change we need, and how the courts will treat it, remain to be determined.

 

The health care industry is being transformed, one deal at a time

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The health care industry is being transformed, one deal at a time

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More than 200 health care deals representing $72.6 billion were announced in the first quarter of 2018, kicking off what will be an active year for deal making in the U.S. Consolidation plans, pent up private equity demand, new entrants, and other market forces will continue to motivate industry players to reflect, reevaluate their business models, and make strategic bets on deals and partnerships.

New business models are emerging. Their common goal is to drive down costs, create value, and compete more effectively. These deals position major players to transition to a system based on value of care versus the volume of services — a system that better aligns with what consumers have come to expect from their health care experience.

Four archetypes of new health care deals are emerging. As I described in a recent PwC Health Research Institute report, they include:

  • Vertical integrators such as Cigna and Express Scripts, which hope to build efficiencies of scale and condense the value chain
  • Employer activists such as Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase, who seek a better health care offering for their employees
  • Technology invaders such as Google or Uber aiming to gain better footholds in the industry
  • Health retailers such as Amazon looking to gain market share by better understanding consumer desires and behavior and provide some types of health care directly

If these new models gain steam, disruption will follow.

An arduous journey

Current health care deals have to close in one of the most complex and regulated markets in the world. Before these companies can actually effect change, they will have to create entirely new infrastructures, drive behavior change, and bring on the right leaders to help them navigate twists and turns for years. New entrants — many from fast-paced industries that have long put data analytics and the customer experience at the center of their businesses — will have to endure a grueling pace on the path to change.

The health care industry will transform, but we will likely see more plans on the shelf than in the market. Changes will be slow, but several trends will be more visible this year:

The landscape will keep changing. Announcements of more deals will put pressure on other companies to secure their own acquisitions. Activity begets more activity, and consolidation prompts other companies to acquire — and then likely divest — as they reshape their business. And it’s no secret that private equity has a surplus of cash and its eyes on health care.

Companies will learn to compete differently. As large organizations continue to merge — and they will — small organizations will reposition themselves as more nimble, customer-centric options. They will leverage their size to invest more into building relationships with consumers, winning loyalty points from them along the way.

The customer experience will evolve and drive deals. There is little question among most experts and patients that significant improvements to health services’ customer experience are needed. Health care as an industry has the lowest Net Promoter Score, a tool used to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships, of any industry: Health care’s score is 15, compared with tech’s impressive 60. Many companies are looking at ways to use data and technology to improve patients’ experiences.

New models must foster new cultures. For all the reasons it is difficult to enter the health services market, it is even more difficult to create real change that affects the sector’s most important stakeholder: consumers. As companies continue to find ways to deliver more values-based care through acquisition and partnerships, they will also have to explore ways to drive a culture shift. Taking care of doctors so they can spend more time with patients and less time with paperwork and electronic health records, and empowering consumers with the right tools and information to actively participate in their own care, all have distinct roles in the future health economy.

The health services industry can expect to see steady deal making in what will prove to be an exciting time. But amidst all the excitement, we will need to remain cautiously optimistic that this increased consolidation will create value, as the system is incredibly nuanced and slow to change. New entrants will need to have endurance and commitment to succeed.

 

 

St. Joseph Health hit with anti-trust lawsuit for allegedly stifling competition: 5 things to know

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/st-joseph-health-hit-with-anti-trust-lawsuit-for-allegedly-stifling-competition-5-things-to-know.html

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Wahidullah Medical Corp., which owns Eureka, Calif.-based Redwood Urgent Care and its outpatient medical testing laboratory, filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Eureka-based St. Joseph Hospital claiming the hospital used unfair business tactics and stifled competition to protect 10-fold price markups, according to The North Coast Journal.

Here are five things to know.

1. Wahidullah Medical Corp. filed the lawsuit in early April seeking a preliminary injection to bar St. Joseph from attempting to monopolize the outpatient laboratory testing industry. In addition, the medical company is seeking a jury trial, legal fees and damages.

2. The lawsuit claims St. Joseph Hospital, which is owned by Irvine, Calif.-based St. Joseph Health, illegally conspired to stifle competition for medical lab testing in the Eureka market by actively tarnishing its competition’s reputation, misleading consumers and implementing an EMR that was incompatible with Redwood Urgent Care.

3. The suit claims lab tests at St. Joseph’s medical lab were nearly 10 times more expensive than the Redwood outpatient testing lab, citing an instance where St. Joseph charged a patient without insurance $327 for a vitamin D test — a test that would cost $36 at Redwood for an uninsured patient. Specifically, the suit alleges St. Joseph’s failed to inform patients that there was another medical testing facility that could save them money.

4. “St. Joseph Health … decided to protect its lab-testing business from fair competition by resorting to tortuous and anticompetitive behavior designed to put Redwood Lab out of business and thereby leave consumers of out-patient medical laboratory testing services in Eureka with no option but St. Joseph Health,” the lawsuit reads, according to The North Coast Journal.

5. In total, the suit accuses St. Joseph’s of seven specific violations of state and federal anti-trust laws.

 

Healthcare megadeals may have major long-term impact, Moody’s says

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/healthcare-megadeals-may-have-major-long-term-impact-moodys-says/521578/

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Dive Brief:

  • CVS Health’s plan to buy Aetna could have a significant impact on hospitals, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), according to Moody’s Investors Service’s Healthcare Quarterly.
  • Payers’ vertical integration strategies are credit negative for hospitals, but hospitals’ plans to make generic drugs and other new strategies are positives, Moody’s said.
  • On the payer side, Moody’s said mergers between health insurers and PBMs are credit negative in the short-term because of increased debt and risk associated with integration. However, in the long run, these deals may lower costs.

Moody’s said hospitals may feel the impact of UnitedHealth’s Optum buying DaVita Medical and Humana investing in Kindred Healthcare. However, Cigna’s purchase of Express Scripts won’t have much of an effect on hospitals.

Payers’ vertical integration strategies, such as buying physician groups and non-acute care providers, are credit negative for nonprofit and for-profit hospitals and put more pressure on hospital volumes and margins, Moody’s said.

The issue comes from payer vertical integration being able to offer preventive, outpatient and post-acute care for lower costs than acute care hospitals. These initiatives will have an increasingly disruptive impact to hospitals’ credit quality, according to the report.

“These strategies would place insurers in direct competition with hospitals, which offer the same services and are also seeking to align with physician groups,” Moody’s said.

On the payer side, two recently announced megadeals, CVS-Aetna and Cigna-Express Scripts, are both designed to control rising medical costs and target drug prescriptions, which now account for nearly one-fifth of total health spending. While payers have been able to limit growth in utilization, medical inflation and sources of medical care, prescription drug costs continue to rise, Moody’s said.

Though Moody’s expects both deals to be credit negative in the short-term, they have the potential to turn credit positive in the long run, especially CVS-Aetna. “The combined company has the potential to lower medical costs as Aetna will be better able to engage with its members as they purchase drugs at CVS retail pharmacies or through its prescription drug programs,” Moody’s said.

These deals will result in most payers having to contract with a PBM owned by a competitor. Moody’s expects PBM competition to remain high. Payer-owned PBMs must still offer the same cost savings to competitors to keep customers.

Out of the recent megadeals, only CVS buying Aetna is expected to have “more significant impact” for payers. The other announced transactions aren’t expected to cause many problems for insurance companies, Moody’s said.

Looking at initiatives that are in development, Moody’s said none of the big-name plans are expected to have much of an impact on the healthcare segments. These include the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase’s partnership, Apple opening medical clinics and entering the medical record business or nonprofit hospitals forming a generics company.

 

Hearing Planned In Boston For Proposed 13-Hospital Merger

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http://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/04/08/massachusetts-hospital-merger-boston-council-hearing/

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The Boston City Council is planning to hold a public hearing on one of the largest hospital mergers ever proposed in Massachusetts.

The 13-hospital deal would result in the merger of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center hospitals, The Lahey Health system, along with New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, and Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport.

The hospitals hope to create a health network that can compete with Partners HealthCare, the parent company of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals.

Not everyone is on board. Critics say creating a second hospital behemoth is the wrong direction for the state.

The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Boston City Hall.

A staff report from the state Department of Public Health has recommended the deal’s approval.

Consolidating California: Concentrated Provider Markets and Rising Prices

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A UC Berkeley study suggests that provider and insurer consolidation is increasing, reducing competition in regional markets, and leading to higher healthcare prices across California.

In the midst of a nationwide consolidation trend, California is witnessing a swell of mergers among health providers and insurers, resulting in higher prices for consumers and large-scale employers across the state.

A recent study found most counties in California, especially those in the rural northern portion of the state, have highly concentrated hospital markets, noting provider consolidation rose as average insurer consolidation decreased statewide.

The report, released last month by the Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets and Consumer Welfare School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that Californians pay for healthcare services that are “considerably above what a more competitive market would produce.”

Of the 54 counties surveyed, 44 were highly concentrated hospital markets and six were moderately concentrated. According to the study, seven of these counties warrant “concern and scrutiny” by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

The report found from 2010 to 2016, there was a 15% increase in physicians working for a foundation owned by a hospital or health system rather than physician practices, due in part to health system mergers, as well as a 13% increase for primary care physicians, and a 29% increase for specialist physicians.

Additionally, the study found 42 counties surveyed for commercial health plans were highly concentrated while 16 were moderately concentrated. The study also recommended federal agencies review the concentration levels of the insurer market in seven counties.

Breeding anticompetitive behavior

Bill Kramer, MBA, executive director for national health policy at the Pacific Business Group on Health, told HealthLeaders Media the consolidation trend in California is a “serious problem” that employers have been dealing with for years.

Kramer said large health systems, physician groups, and health plans recognize that consolidation leads to increased market power, which in turn provides the opportunity to raise healthcare service prices above what is allowed in a competitive marketplace.

Two weeks ago, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued northern California’s Sutter Health, for anticompetitive practices. Sutter, a health system with $12.4 billion in operating revenue in 2017, is charged with foreclosing price competition on its competitors, imposing prices for healthcare services exceeding a competitive market value, and restricting negotiations with insurers to an “all-or-nothing” basis.

Since 2014, Sutter has also been the focus of a class-action lawsuit filed by a grocery worker’s health plan alleging violation of antitrust and unfair competition laws.

“When a provider or any other healthcare entity gains significant market share, it can use that power to negotiate higher prices,” Kramer said. “But they also can put in place mechanisms that strengthen their market power further. That’s what [Becerra] and complainants in this other lawsuit have alleged, that anticompetitive behavior further strengthens their market power and their ability to raise prices. It’s all part of the same picture.”

State and federal blocks on insurers, not providers

Becerra’s lawsuit against Sutter is not the first time state or federal officials have stepped in to address concerns in California’s healthcare industry.

In June 2016, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones requested the federal government block the proposed Aetna-Humana merger, citing concerns about an “already heavily concentrated commercial insurance” market. A federal judge agreed with his request and blocked the move in January 2017.

Despite recent and growing recognition among state and federal officials that action must be taken, Kramer says provider consolidation remains an issue without a simple solution. Efforts to enact antitrust statutes against health system mergers in recent years have not always been successful, and are often looked at as the “nuclear option” by industry watchers.

A potential path to offsetting provider consolidation is greenlighting insurer consolidation, though Kramer says there is mixed evidence about whether that would be effective. He said some argue that two large industries competing against each other can result in lower prices, while others claim there is no guarantee that consumers will see lower prices if savings are secured by insurers.

The Berkeley report recommends legislative and regulatory action to address “significant variation” in prices and Affordable Care Act (ACA) premiums across the state, specifically suggesting the implementation of reference pricing by public marketplaces and private employers.

Kramer says the consolidation dilemma is not unique to California, which offers state officials a chance to adopt proactive measures taken by other states to address rising healthcare costs associated with consolidation.

In 2011, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley authored a report similar to the Berkeley study that analyzed the rise in high prices due to health system mergers. The study ultimately led to the creation of the Health Policy Commission in 2012, with the purpose of monitoring healthcare prices in the state.

NoCal versus SoCal

Another important aspect of the consolidation trend in California is the divide between the rural northern counties and the more populous southern metropolitan area.

Northern California is a sparsely populated region dominated by large health systems, giving insurers less leverage to negotiate prices. A 2017 study from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute (BACEI), the Center for Health Policy at Brookings, and The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government found that the hospital concentration in northern counties, where only two insurers cover the entire region, is five times higher than the Inland Empire.

Micah Weinberg, PhD, president of BACEI, told HealthLeaders Media the consolidation trend is not tied to one particular factor such as geography.

BACEI’s report cited the consolidation of a few health systems in northern California as a “perennial concern” and driver of rate variation between regions. However, Weinberg said that when low-price, for-profit systems in southern California are removed from the equation, there is a fair amount of parity between prices charged there compared to those charged in northern California.

Related: 3 Reasons Why Health Insurers and PBMs Are Merging

According to Weinberg, another aspect to California’s healthcare market that affects prices has been the implementation of a “very successful experiment” in managed competition through the state exchange. In 2010, California became the first state to create its own insurance marketplace under the ACA.

He argues that Covered California, the state’s insurance marketplace, has standardized healthcare products, instituted financial incentives for providers to embrace limited networks, and fostered competition.

“What that does is it emphasizes the importance of not only payers and providers, but of the structure of the marketplace, in which consumers are making choices across different provider groups linked to particular insurance plans,” Weinberg said.

The BACEI report did cite the ACA as an unintended driver of increased regional consolidation among providers, which has made achieving profitability in northern California a challenge for insurers such as UnitedHealth Group Inc., which exited the statewide ACA marketplace entirely in 2016.

 

 

Mercy Health and Bon Secours Announce Merger

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The Maryland and Ohio health systems announced Wednesday their intention to merge. The joint venture would be the nation’s fifth-largest Catholic health system.

Bon Secours Health System and Mercy Health announced their intention Wednesday to merge, potentially forming the fifth-largest Catholic health system in the country.

The proposed merger would join Mercy, the largest health system in Ohio, with Bon Secours, a Maryland-based Catholic health system with locations throughout the East Coast.

Related: Expect M&A Deluge To Continue Through 2018 And Beyond

If approved, the new system would operate 43 hospitals and more than 1,000 care sites across seven states, while generating close to $9 billion in annual operating revenues. Additionally, the new system would employ more than 2,100 physicians and advanced practice clinicians.

“Our decision to join forces with Bon Secours is rooted in our shared and very deep commitment to delivering compassionate, low-cost, high-quality health care to our communities,” said John M. Starcher Jr., president and CEO of Mercy Health, in a statement. “Working together, our strong faith-based heritage fuels our mutual focus to provide efficient and effective health care for each patient who comes through our doors.”

The proposed merger will need to gain approval from state and federal regulators as well as the Catholic Church, which oversees both systems. Leaders from Mercy and Bon Secours expect the deal to be completed by the end of the year.

“The mission, vision, values and geographic service areas of Bon Secours and Mercy Health are remarkably well-aligned and highly complementary,” said Richard J. Statuto, president and CEO of Bon Secours, in a statement. “This merger strengthens our shared commitment to improve population health, eliminate health disparities, build strength to address social determinants of health, and invest heavily in innovating our approaches to health care.”