Hospital Mergers and Quality: Lessons from a Recent Antitrust Case

Hospital consolidation matters. We know that mergers increase hospital prices and average cost per unit, but what about quality? Hospitals pursuing mergers often claim quality improvement as their goal, especially in rescuing allegedly struggling acquisitions, and that such improvements counterbalance cost increases. We examine this claim in a recent antitrust case. The intent is to inform courts and regulators about the availability of quality data to evaluate proposed mergers between allegedly