A report released Monday by Yale University’s Health Care Affordability Lab said the pending WVU Health System-Independence Health System merger will increase the concentration of ownership of hospitals in southwestern Pennsylvania and potentially raise health care costs.
The Health Care Affordability Lab said the acquisition by WVU Medicine of the former Excela Health and Butler Health System hospitals would create a “red zone merger,” one that concentrates hospital care in a smaller number of owners. That would include not just Independence Health System’s Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant and WVU Medicine Uniontown Hospital, but also a hospital market in between that isn’t owned by either: Penn Highlands Connellsville.
The expected concentration will be the largest and “most alarming” in Connellsville, but it would also impact competition in each of the areas involved, according to the lab’s data and also guidelines for proposed health care mergers from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
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