Sutter Health Claims It Doesn’t Have Market Power As Antitrust Trial Begins | Kaiser Health News

Sutter Health on Thursday attempted to shake off federal antitrust allegations by arguing that the 24-hospital system doesn’t have market power in the Northern California region it serves.

A lawsuit over high health care bills filed on behalf of more than 3 million employers and people seeks as much as $1.2 billion from a large Northern California health system in an antitrust class-action trial getting underway Thursday.

The report from the Service Employees International Union analyzed national Medicare data and found that hospitals run by HCA had an emergency department admission rate in 2019 that was 5% higher than the national average.

Two doctors and eight others are accused of health care fraud in the indictment after several federal offices, including the FBI Dallas field office, investigated the case, the U.S.

The former owner of a group of health spas and clinics in the San Fernando Valley pleaded guilty Tuesday to her role in a $20-million healthcare fraud scheme that involved Botox injections and laser hair removal, according to federal investigators.

Cook County commissioners are set this week to finalize a $6.75 million settlement to a former patient of Stroger Hospital who alleges in a lawsuit that she was left paralyzed because doctors failed to treat a spinal condition.

Advent Health Partners said in a statement it “detected suspicious activity on employee email accounts involving data provided to Advent Health Partners” in September 2021, and the company started an investigation into the issue.

The New Haven-based health system, the state’s largest by revenue, said Thursday it had signed an agreement with Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings to acquire its three Connecticut-based hospitals: Waterbury Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville General Hospital.

The Norfolk, Virginia-based health system will give eligible employees a 5% wage increase starting March 17 and will offer merit raises in May, the company said in a news release.

Patients with sepsis who are discharged from emergency departments appear not to have adverse outcomes, but doctors overseeing their care could benefit from uniform guidelines for those decisions, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open on Thursday.

Thank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News , the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy.

…Read the full story