TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Locals on this metropolis of 58,000 are used to having to attend at railroad crossings for one of many dozens of day by day cargo trains to cross via.
However a proposed merger between the 2 hospitals on both facet of the town might exacerbate the issue in emergencies if the hospitals shut down some providers, resembling trauma care, at one website, which the proposal cites as a risk. Tom Excessive, fireplace chief of a close-by township, stated some first responders could be compelled to move crucial sufferers farther, risking longer delays, in the event that they turn into what locals name “railroaded” by a passing practice.
That’s simply one of many fears on this neighborhood as Indiana officers overview whether or not to permit Union Hospital, licensed as a 341-bed facility, to buy the county’s solely different acute care hospital, the 278-bed Terre Haute Regional Hospital. The proposed deal additionally raises issues about lowered tax income, worsening care, and better costs.
Throughout the subsequent few months, the Indiana Division of Well being should discover “clear evidence” that the proposed merger would enhance well being outcomes, entry, and the standard of care. These advantages should “outweigh any potential disadvantages.”
Because the nation’s well being care business has turn into extra concentrated amid a gradual clip of mergers in latest a long time, it’s widespread for one massive system to dominate a market. On this case, the deal could be Indiana’s first merger below the COPA regulation, brief for Certificates of Public Benefit, that the state enacted in 2021. Such legal guidelines permit offers that the Federal Commerce Fee in any other case considers unlawful as a result of they cut back competitors and infrequently create monopolies. To mitigate the detrimental results of a monopoly, the merged hospitals usually comply with circumstances imposed by state regulators.
Union Hospital leaders stated it’s time to maneuver “beyond competition” for the sake of the area, which has struggled to maintain jobs and lift life expectancy charges. Hospital spokesperson Neil Garrison stated the merger would in the end enhance care, improve entry, and reduce prices. Leaders of Regional Hospital, which is owned by for-profit chain HCA Healthcare, didn’t reply to questions concerning the proposal.
One uncommon implication arises, although: If the merger is authorised, the encompassing county would lose tax income from one in all its bigger companies. Union Hospital, which as a nonprofit is exempt from paying taxes, could be buying tax-paying Terre Haute Regional, which paid roughly $508,000 in county taxes for 2023, stated Vigo County Auditor Jim Bramble. That’s the equal of the beginning salaries of about 9 sheriff’s deputies, per the county’s $83 million 2024 price range.
Garrison stated the hospital system is conscious of the tax implications for the county and is “exploring opportunities” to handle it.
In the meantime, Roland Kohr, previously a pathologist at Regional and a county coroner, frets about erasing competitors that compelled the hospitals so as to add providers or match the opposite. “The push to introduce new technologies, to recruit more physicians, that may not happen,” he stated.
The FTC has urged states to keep away from COPAs, pointing to analysis that discovered they “have resulted in significant price increases and contributed to declines in quality of care.” The fallout of comparable mergers has triggered federal sanctions in North Carolina and pushback from locals and legislators in Tennessee.
“A merged hospital system that faces little remaining competition after the merger usually has little incentive to follow through with its promises because patients have no other choice,” wrote Chris Garmon, a College of Missouri-Kansas Metropolis economist who has studied COPA mergers, in a warning to Indiana well being officers concerning the proposed merger.
Indiana already has among the many highest hospital costs within the nation, in accordance with a research by the Rand Corp. analysis group. The Indiana Legislature spent the previous 12 months making an attempt to rein in costs. Gloria Sachdev, CEO of Indianapolis-based Employers’ Discussion board of Indiana, which pushed for these pricing limits on behalf of pissed off enterprise leaders, is nervous a Union-Regional merger would undo these features and lift costs additional.
Indiana’s COPA restricts how a lot the hospital might improve fees, Garrison stated.
Elsewhere, the biggest COPA-created hospital system within the nation, Ballad Well being, has reported that the time sufferers spend in its ERs in Virginia and Tennessee earlier than being hospitalized has greater than tripled, reaching almost 11 hours, within the six years since that monopoly of 20 hospitals fashioned. Nonetheless, Tennessee has awarded Ballad high marks even when sure high quality metrics, together with its ER velocity, fall under established benchmarks.
Ballad Well being spokesperson Molly Luton stated the system’s efficiency has improved since these statistics have been gathered.
Final fall, some Tennesseans unsuccessfully urged a county board to name on the state to higher regulate the hospital system. This spring, state lawmakers refused to listen to testimony from residents who drove 5 hours to Nashville to testify for a invoice that sought to restrict future COPA mergers within the state — which in the end didn’t make it to a full vote.
Issues have additionally occurred when a COPA — and its oversight — are eliminated, leaving the merged hospital system as an “unregulated monopoly.” After North Carolina repealed its COPA in 2015, a subsidiary of HCA Healthcare purchased Mission Well being, a COPA-created monopoly in Asheville, for $1.5 billion in 2019. The monopoly in Asheville remained however not one of the COPA’s circumstances utilized to the brand new proprietor.
Final 12 months, authorities inspectors discovered “deficiencies” at Mission Well being that contributed to 4 affected person deaths and posed an “immediate jeopardy” to sufferers’ well being and security, in accordance with the 384-page federal inspection report. North Carolina Lawyer Basic Joshua Stein sued HCA’s subsidiary final 12 months, alleging the ER was “significantly degraded,” and that the corporate failed to take care of sure crucial providers, together with oncology care, a violation of a purchase order settlement Stein’s workplace negotiated with it as a result of the corporate acquired a nonprofit.
HCA stated it promptly addressed the problems and denied Stein’s allegations in its authorized response to the continuing lawsuit, arguing it has expanded providers since its buy. HCA additionally argued that the settlement is silent about sustaining the standard of care.
Again in Indiana, Union Hospital laid the groundwork for its merger greater than three years in the past when its leaders offered the language for COPA laws to then-state Sen. Jon Ford, a Republican in Terre Haute, believing he could be “the best champion for this proposal,” in accordance with legislative testimony from Taylor Hollenbeck, an RJL Options marketing consultant on the merger. Ford, listed on the legislature’s website because the invoice’s co-author, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Union CEO Steve Holman testified within the invoice’s hearings that the county’s public well being rankings — with a median life expectancy rating 68th out of 92 counties within the state — needs to be a “call to action” to do one thing “big and bold.”
Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun agrees the merger might assist what he referred to as the county’s “abysmal” public well being statistics. Final 12 months, he was elected the town’s youngest mayor at age 27 on a promise to “turn Terre Haute around.” The area’s workforce has steadily declined and native leaders have pinned their hopes on a brand new on line casino and a producer of battery elements for electrical autos to reverse this development.
Sakbun’s father is an OB-GYN at Union, however the mayor stated that doesn’t colour his opinion and that he helps the hospital merger regardless of the lack of the tax base. He believes it would assist recruit medical and different professionals to an space that has struggled to draw high expertise.
“Do I believe that this is the one that bucks the research?” Sakbun stated. “I truthfully do.”
KFF Well being Information correspondent Brett Kelman contributed to this text.
