Antitrust scrutiny of hospital consolidation in the state of Chicago place is not preventing Northwestern University's academic medical center from pursuing another merger.
Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial is in discussions with Centegra Health System, deployed in northwest suburban Crystal Lake, to explore a possible combination. There is no guarantee that the negotiations will lead to a full-blown merger, but Northwestern has been more victorious than not in closing deals.
Northwestern and Centegra claim a combination would benefit sufferers by increasing access to high-quality care. But studies recommend that hospital consolidation in the U.S. has led to higher costs and the affect on quality of care is limited and mixed. The Federal Trade Commission has challenged few of the mergers and acquisitions.
In the year 2014, Northwestern scooped up Cadence Health in suburban Winfield and then went further west, achieving KishHealth System in DeKalb at the end of previous year. The deals expanded its footprint beyond its conventional downtown power base in an increasingly competitive Chicago-area market where most hospitals are treating with fewer sufferers. The expansion also offered Northwestern much-required clout with insurance companies that are not major fans of the high-cost medical care provided by academic medical centers.
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