Prime Healthcare faces deadline in legal battle

Prime Healthcare Services, Ontario, Calif., has until Sept. 20 to file an amended complaint in its legal fight against the Service Employees International Union and Kaiser Permanente.

On Aug. 30, a U.S. District Court judge in San Diego dismissed Prime's antitrust lawsuit against the two parties (PDF), noting that the for-profit health system had failed to provide sufficient facts showing that Kaiser and the union had engaged in a conspiracy to keep it out of the market.

Prime filed suit last November, charging the SEIU and Kaiser with engaging in anticompetitive actions such as fixing healthcare labor wages and directing patients away from non-Kaiser facilities.

According to court documents, Prime has 21 days from the Aug. 30 ruling to file an amended complaint or its case will be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it won’t be able to refile. A spokeswoman today reiterated that the company intends to file a new complaint, but could not confirm whether it has done so.

U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino also granted the defendants’ motion to strike certain “superfluous historical allegations” from the complaint—namely those alleging that the SEIU engaged in similar anti-competitive actions in other industries such as janitorial services, home care and childcare. But she denied the motion to strike other allegations meant to show prior collusions between Kaiser and the union.

The healthcare systems are also doing battle in state court in Los Angeles over $100 million in unpaid medical claims for Kaiser health plan members treated at Prime facilities. Prime has also charged Kaiser and the SEIU with engaging in a smear campaign using Medicare data to show it has poor infection-prevention procedures and that it upcoded charges.

In response, Kaiser and the SEIU have alleged that Prime filed its suits to detract from its unsafe practices and Medicare overbilling scheme.