Hospital Mergers and Protests

Last time I blogged here, I did a number of posts about sketchy conduct by nonprofit hospitals. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal did some great investigative journalism about that.

Last week, on Twitter, I came across a thread about another hospital issue: the proposed merger of Minnesota’s Fairview Health Services and South Dakota’s Sanford Health.

Apparently the two tried to merge in 2013 to, let’s say, less-than-stellar results. And how is this attempt going? Not much better. On Friday, medical professionals and med students at the University of Minnesota medical school rallied against the proposed merger. Protestors seem to have two objections. The first is, they don’t want the University of Minnesota’s health care system controlled by an out-of-state entity.

More importantly, they point to the fact that mergers in the nonprofit health care industry almost inevitably lead to consolidations, job loss, and loss of care for patients who use the health care system. And it’s hard to argue that they’re wrong: the Times‘s reporting shows precisely that happening as a result of the mergers and consolidations it looked at.

Will the merger happen? Well, it’s failed before. It’s deeply unpopular. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Samuel D. Brunson

Merger and acquisition law by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free