Why one hospital merger stands out among the rest
07/09/24 at 03:00 AM
Why one hospital merger stands out among the rest
Becker's Hospital Review; by Andrew Cass; 7/3/24
Two rival hospitals in Terre Haute, Ind., seeking to merge are the first to test the state's certificate of public advantage (COPA) law, The Washington Post reported July 3. Five things to know:
- In September, Union Health announced plans to acquire Terre Haute Regional Hospital, which is part of Nashville, TN-based HCA Healthcare.
- The Indiana Department of Health will decide whether to permit the deal under the state's COPA law, which passed in 2021. ...
- More than a dozen states have enacted COPA laws, which allow state regulators to approve deals that the Federal Trade Commission would otherwise consider illegal because they reduce competition ...
- Stipulations for Indiana's COPA law include that the hospitals must be located in a predominantly rural county that has a population of less than 140,000 and is not contiguous to a county with a population of more than 250,000.
- The largest COPA-created health system in the country is Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health, which resulted from the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System, according to the report. ...