Hospital systems have justified horizontal mergers for years claiming that larger scale will lower costs and raise quality. We now have the 3rd study showing that merged systems, even if in different markets, materially raise prices & don't improve quality measures.
via STAT

New study from Petris Center and UC Law San Francisco is the third study to find price increases after cross-market hospital mergers, noting prices increased almost 13% in the 6 years following acquisition – with no metric showing quality improvements.

Read more: statnews.com/2024/04/23/hos…

Site neutral payment reforms continue to see 🤝 bipartisan support. The cost of care shouldn’t be determined by the sign on the door. Read the latest op-ed from former HHS.gov Secs. Alex Azar and Kathleen Sebelius via STAT:
statnews.com/2024/04/18/sit…

How does switching a health care payment model from mandatory to voluntary affect hospital incentives and government spending? J-PAL North America Co-Scientific Director Amy Finkelstein and affiliated researcher Neale Mahoney explore this question in this paper: povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/imp…

lol some hospitals are still posting this sludge to be compliant with federal price transparency law twitter.com/bobjherman/sta…

MA markets with larger benchmark cuts absorbed the cuts without shrinking the MA market, suggesting that insurers maintained benefits valued by marginal enrollees.

See the full paper + editorial for more:
Editorial: jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-…
Paper: jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-…
(5/5)

⚡️New Report: HCCI’s 2022 annual report examines health care spending, use, and prices from 2018-2022 among the ESI population. In 2022, per-person spending among people with ESI averaged more than $6,700. healthcostinstitute.org/health-care-co…

🚨 New paper alert! “Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector?” with Zarek Brot-Goldberg, Stuart Craig, and Lev Klarnet that’s forthcoming in American Economic Review: Insights. TLDR: Yes…there has been way too little enforcement. 🧵

This, but for real

Hospitals use of junk facility fees are crushing patients.

thirdway.org/report/same-se…

Potentially large ramifications for health care, where noncompetes have become common in physician groups acquired by hospitals & private equity firms.

brookings.edu/articles/priva…

Rep Arrington endorses site neutral

Burgess: Site Neutral Policies Key To Stable Doc Pay, Lower Overall Costs
insidehealthpolicy.com/daily-news/bur…

This is hilarious

'we're a small part of the healthcare system'

Alright, you guys forced me to update this.

Now we're up to 113 health systems ranked by revenue. Keep em coming 🙂

disappointed, but not surprised.

Interesting look into some of difficulties w/ No Surprises Act implementation to date, from insurer non-payment (or delayed payment) of arbitration awards to those awards coming in far higher than market prices (which will tend to ↑ premiums).

subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/0… ($)