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December 18, 2007

FTC won't stand in way of hospital group merger in R.I.

Lifespan and Care New England, the two hospital groups in Rhode Island, announced today that the Federal Trade Commission will not stand in the way of their plans to merge.

That means that the groups have cleared the first hurdle in their effort to unite into a seven-hospital corporation controlling two-thirds of hospital services in Rhode Island. But they still need approval from state regulators, likely to be a more arduous process.

The FTC reviewed the plans to see whether the merger would violate anti-trust laws. If the commission believed that the merger would lessen competition in the marketplace, it would have made a second request for information. Instead, the FTC notified the hospitals last week that a committee had recommended against seeking additional information, and then the deadline for making that second request passed at midnight last night, said Lifespan spokeswoman Jane Bruno.

Bruno said that the merger would not create a monopoly because the health-care marketplace extends well beyond the borders of Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, Lifespan and Care New England still have not filed their application with the Department of Health and the attorney general. Bruno said the hospitals have been working with state regulators to complete the application but could not predict when it would be completed.

If approved, the newly merged company will be called Lifespan and will encompass Rhode Island Hospital, Miriam Hospital, Bradley Hospital and Newport Hospital (the current Lifespan groups) along with Women & Infants Hospital, Butler Hospital and Kent Hospital (now part of Care New England).

-- Journal medical writer Felice J. Freyer

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 2:39 PM | Permalink

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