FTC Staff Provides Supplemental Public Comment in Tennessee Opposing Health Systems’ Certificate of Public Advantage Application

The Federal Trade Commission staff submitted a supplemental comment and analysis to the Tennessee Department of Health that opposes issuing a certificate of public advantage, or COPA, to Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System. The supplemental comment replies to Mountain States and Wellmont’s December 19, 2016 response to FTC staff’s previous comment, and provides a chart analyzing the parties’ proposed COPA commitments.

In both comments, staff of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Economics, and Office of Policy Planning expressed concern that the proposed merger of Mountain States and Wellmont would lead to significant harm to residents of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. Also, according to the comments, the two hospital systems have not shown that this harm would be outweighed by the purported benefits of the merger, or offset by the commitments they have proposed. As a result, the parties “failed to meet their burden by a wide margin – much less through clear and convincing evidence.”

The Commission vote to issue the staff public comment to the Tennessee Department of Health was 3-0. (FTC File No. 1510115; the staff contacts are Goldie Walker, Bureau of Competition, 202-326-2919, and Stephanie Wilkinson, Office of Policy Planning, 202-326-2084).

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