A proposed merger of two large hospital systems in North Carolina could drive up prices and worsen quality of care for patients, according to health economists.
An April 18, 2019 North Carolina Health News article outlined plans by Atrium Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health to merge. Although an Atrium spokesperson said that the organizations would work to keep “care more accessible and affordable,” experts quoted in the article questioned whether the merger would benefit patients.
“For patients, usually, larger mergers are not good,” said Ashish Jha, K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “As competition goes down, prices tend to go up and quality tends to get worse.”
Read the North Carolina Health News article: More than a medical school: health care giants Atrium Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health want to consolidate
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Hospital mergers may not be best for the patient (Harvard Chan School news)