A jury in Harris County, Texas, rejected antitrust claims leveled against Memorial Hermann Healthcare System by a group of physicians whose competing hospital in Houston failed in 2007.
The investors in Houston Town & Country Hospital alleged that the eight-hospital system orchestrated the hospital's death after the for-profit competitor opened a few blocks from Memorial Hermann's 319-bed Memorial City Hospital, Houston. The lawsuit argued that Town & Country couldn't secure managed-care contracts because Memorial Hermann
threatened to retaliate against insurers who did business with the physicians' upstart.
The jury deliberated for two days after an eight-week trial. “The business of healthcare is complicated even for many of those who work in healthcare today, so we are grateful this jury took care to understand the facts,” Memorial Hermann President and CEO Dan Wolterman said in a new release.
The lead attorney for the physicians suing the system said in an interview that he believes the case was a close decision for the jury. “The documents were clear they had a strategy to tell anyone who contracted with physician-owned hospitals they would either terminate them or raise their rates significantly,” said Richard Zook, a partner in the law firm Thompson & Knight. “The question was whether insurance companies joined in a conspiracy, and the jury concluded there was not enough evidence for that.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott investigated the alleged antitrust conspiracy and in January 2009 reached a settlement agreement with Memorial Hermann in which the system
agreed to a five-year injunction prohibiting the kind of contracting practices at issue while denying ever engaging in them.
What do you think? Post a comment on this article and share your opinion with other readers. Submit your letter to Modern Healthcare Online at
mheditorial@modernhealthcare.com. Please be sure to include your hometown and state, along with your organization and title.
