“The Federal Trade Commission has ordered two health systems and five healthcare insurers to turn over aggregated patient billing and discharge data, as well as employee wage and other information.”
“The FTC says the data is necessary for analyzing health systems’ prices, quality, access and innovation as part of the agency’s efforts to study the impact of hospital consolidation on employee wages and the effects of certificates of public advantage.”
“Certificates of Public Advantage (COPAs) are regulatory regimes adopted by state governments to displace competition among healthcare providers, and immunize mergers and collaborations from antitrust scrutiny.”
‘Ballad Health in Johnson City, Tenn., and Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, W.Va., are the two provider organizations on the receiving end of the FTC orders. The five health payers also ordered to hand over data are Aetna, Anthem, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Cigna and United Healthcare…” Read the full article here.
Source: FTC orders health systems, insurers to hand over data for study – By Greg Slabodkin, October 27, 2019. HealthData Management.
