OhioHealth settles case on using market dominance to drive up prices

Tara covers the business of health care. Her stories focus on hospitals, doctors, and how their business practices affect patients — especially when private equity gets involved. She also writes about health insurance and ideas for improving our broken health system. You can reach Tara on Signal at tarabannow.70.

Legal experts say the speed and decisiveness of the Department of Justice’s proposed antitrust settlement with OhioHealth should put other hospitals on notice. 

The DOJ and Ohio attorney general’s proposed settlement announced Wednesday would require nonprofit OhioHealth to quit using certain contracting practices that the agencies say prevented health insurers from selling cheaper policies. The deal, which comes just four months after the agencies sued the Columbus-based system, will likely push other health systems to examine their own contracting practices. 

“I would expect lawyers will get pretty busy looking at contracts with payers,” said Katie Keith, the director of Georgetown University’s Center for Health Policy and the Law.