Alta Bates and Summit Medical Centers Merger Antitrust Suit

Analysis Group was retained by two San Francisco-area hospitals, Alta Bates Medical Center and Summit Medical Center, in an antitrust litigation with the California Attorney General’s Office. Alta Bates and Summit had proposed merging, and the merger was approved by federal antitrust officials but opposed by the California State Attorney General’s Office. Analysis Group worked with one of our industry affiliates to prepare testimony to address various issues of competition and pricing related to managed care. In particular, the issues focused on the ability of managed care plans to take actions to mitigate potential hospital price increases, including directing patients, using varying copayments, and other techniques short of dropping a facility completely from a provider network. The testimony of our expert was used in the trial, and the merger was allowed to proceed.