Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1406663
56 ASC ASC sues to block hospital's 'anticompetitive' acquisition: 5 key details for administrators By Laura Dyrda A Marion, Ill.-based multispecialty ASC is testing President Joe Biden's executive order to scrutinize and halt acquisitions that would limit competition and increase healthcare prices. Marion HealthCare, a surgery center with or- thopedics, gastroenterology, general surgery and more, filed a lawsuit July 29 to challenge Southern Illinois Hospital Service's planned purchase of Harrisburg (Ill.) Medical Center. e surgery center cited President Biden's July 9 executive order to enforce antitrust laws written to prevent "excessive concentra- tion of industry," particularly in healthcare. "e effect of the proposed acquisition on the ... primary and corollary product markets would be to substantially reduce competition in those markets, limiting alternative, compet- ing providers of hospital and ambulatory sur- gery services, thereby potentially raising costs to patients, reducing choice of institutional providers and physicians, and further, causing antitrust injury to Marion HealthCare," Mari- on HealthCare claims in the lawsuit. Five details for ASC executives to know: 1. Marion alleges in the lawsuit that Southern Illinois Hospital has around 76 percent of the ambulatory surgery services market in a sev- en-county area that includes Marion HealthCare, a physician-owned facility. e lawsuit also notes Southern Illinois Hospital has 100 percent of ASCs in the area's two domi- nant counties. 2. e acquisition would further consolidate surgical services and referring physicians, as Harrisburg owns and operates multiple primary care and specialty clinics that refer patients to Marion HealthCare for outpatient surgery. e acquisition would disrupt these refer- ral patterns because Harrisburg's physicians would refer patients to Southern Illinois Hos- pital's surgery centers aer the transaction, Marion alleges. 3. Marion claims the acquisition is "anticom- petitive" and would hurt its ability to recruit and retain surgeons to join the group and be- come owners. "A reduction in the ability to attract new phy- sicians and/or replace departing or retiring physicians has a substantial negative effect on Marion HealthCare's income and utilization and by extension, the availability, timeliness and efficiency of services to its patients," Mar- ion said in the lawsuit. 4. e lawsuit also notes Marion provides group health insurance for employees through BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, and the ac- quisition will allow Southern Illinois Hospital to charge higher prices because it has an exclu- sive provider contract with the insurer. 5. Marion HealthCare requests that the courts bar Southern Illinois Hospital from acquiring Harrisburg and prevent any future transac- tions between the two parties. n 3 ASC trends one CEO is following closely By Patsy Newitt Raleigh, N.C., has seen extensive ASC growth in the past year — its population increased 18.7 percent since 2010. Brain Bizub, the CEO of Raleigh (N.C) Orthopaedic Clinic, spoke to Becker's ASC Review about the growth of his cen- ter and the ASC trends he's following. Question: What three trends should ASC industry lead- ers follow closely today? Brian Bizub: The first one is benchmarking patient satis- faction, data collection and whatever else you can collect. You can then dissect it and find what your strengths and weaknesses are. Patient satisfaction is obviously a huge marker for an ASC. They're our marketing step. Primarily, they're the ones go- ing out saying, 'Have your surgery at ASC, don't have it at the hospital' — benchmarking our ASC against other ASCs. Next is looking at reimbursement and bundled payments — whether bundles make sense for an ASC, or whether they end up being programs that work for a few years but then reimbursement is so reduced that your profit margin gets even smaller in the long run. The other thing I would pay attention to is what President Joe Biden's administration is planning. The House has a bill to hopefully eliminate the Provider Relief Fund tax. We got a penalty from the money that we received to help us through the pandemic. I'm not quite sure how much more stringent they could be putting price-transparency laws in place, which I'm a big fan of. I think patients should have the right to know what a pro- cedure costs. However, what they don't have in most of the transparency models that I've seen on the hospital level is the quality indicators that go along with that. As we all know, pricing is a huge factor in the world today, and everyone's looking at it based on high deductibles and HSA plans. n