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Fewer Hospitals May Lead to Higher Prices
Consolidation reduces competition in markets and gives hospitals more leverage to raise prices.
On July 16, two New York City hospital networks announced they were merging to create the largest health care system in the metropolitan area and one of the biggest in the country. The CEO of one of the hospitals said the merger would pave the way for more “efficient” and “integrated” care. Joining the two networks into one entity — to be called the Mount Sinai Health System — would also compensate for “the inability of the federal government or the state governments to be able to pay for the health care that people in the past have demanded,” he told the New York Times.
Put another way, the new large system will have more market power that may allow it to demand higher reimbursements from private insurers, ultimately raising costs for consumers.
Consolidation like this is happening all over the country, as hospitals acquire each other and merge in a trend that started decades ago and may be accelerated by the new health care law. This consolidation reduces competition in markets and gives hospitals more leverage to raise prices.
Read the full story here: http://ti.me/12eJxfG
Source: Time
Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With Ge Bai, PhD, CPA
October 2nd 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care, each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The October issue features a conversation with Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, professor of accounting at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
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