In North Carolina, that territory will now include two major population centers: Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Together, the two systems have 42 hospitals, more than 1,500 clinics and over 70,000 employees across the Carolinas and Georgia. Wake Forest Baptist finished its 2019-20 fiscal year at the end of June with $3.6 billion in revenue and an operating margin of 1.5 percent. Attorney General Josh Stein’s office referred questions on the consolidation of Atrium and Wake Forest to the FTC and the federal agency declined to comment Friday on the grounds that the FTC comments only if the vetting process yields complaints.Ĭombined, the two health systems have “direct and indirect economic and employment impact from the combined enterprise $32 billion,” according to the press release.Ītrium Health finished 2019 with $6.5 billion in revenue and an operating margin of 5.6 percent. The federal agency can, but isn’t required to, coordinate investigations with states’ attorneys general. “The fact that this required FTC approval means that there’s some real financial consequences to this and that really is the story that belongs in the headlines.” “FTC approval does not mean it’s a good thing, it just means the FTC is busy and thinks that, you know, its priorities are elsewhere,” Richman argued. Richman surmised that since Atrium and Wake Forest Baptist function in different markets, the agency was less inclined to push back. The FTC reviews large health care transactions that could result in regional monopolies. “There’s lots and lots of evidence that prices do go up.” ![]() “There’s empirical evidence that suggests that once mergers take place, quality does not improve at all,” said Barak Richman, a Duke Law professor who’s an expert in health care policy and antitrust law. Research has shown that mergers have pushed up costs for procedures and hospital stays, especially when they take place in the same market. In recent years, there’s been increasing scholarship on how health system consolidations affect prices for consumers. In an email Friday, Atrium has said that the health system received “all the required regulatory approvals.”\ No legal review anticipatedĮxecutives from both systems said the agreement, which goes into effect immediately, was approved by the Federal Trade Commission earlier this week. ![]() Separate boards of directors for CMHA, WFUBMC and Wake Forest University will remain in place. with a board comprised of people representing both the Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority and Wake Forest Health. This new move is accomplished by what seems to be a legal sleight of hand that creates a new “enterprise” which will be a nonprofit corporation, Atrium Health Inc. Since then, Atrium has made moves to acquire the Floyd Health System, based in Rome, Georgia. When Atrium saw an opportunity to expand by establishing a foothold in South Carolina, North Carolina lawmakers amended state law in 2015 to explicitly allow such an expansion to another state. In the past Atrium has sought to merge or partner with other health care systems in the state, but was foiled, in part, by an existing state statute that limits the geographic expansion of a hospital authority to within a 10-mile boundary of its home county. This legal structure brings some benefits but it has also served, at times, as a check on Atrium’s desire to expand. ![]() ![]() The agreement earns Wake Forest School of Medicine a second medical school location in Charlotte.Ītrium is in an unusual position it is a county authority, called the Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, and does business under the name Atrium. with the Winston-Salem based Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and its medical school.Ītrium gains a foothold in the Winston-Salem market and access to a medical school, something that Charlotte has lacked to date. The Charlotte-based Atrium Health has agreed to form a new “enterprise,” Atrium Health Inc. On the heels of a flurry of mergers, acquisitions and shifts in North Carolina’s health care environment in recent months, two large systems have announced Friday their intent to more closely affiliate. Lessons from Abroad: How Europeans have tackled opioid addiction and what the U.S.Storm stories – NC Health News works with teens from SE North Carolina to tell their hurricane experiences.Unequal Treatment: Mental health parity in North Carolina.Youth climate stories: Outer Banks edition.When kids’ cries for help become crimes.COVID-19 updates: What’s happening in North Carolina?.
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