After Appalachian Hospitals Merged Into a Monopoly, Their ERs Slowed to a Crawl - KFF Health News
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Ballad Health was granted the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in 2018. Since then, its emergency rooms have become more than three times as slow.

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Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee and Virginia, benefits from the largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in the United States. In the six years since lawmakers in both states waived anti-monopoly laws and Ballad was formed, ER visits for patients sick enough to be hospitalized grew more than three times as long and now far exceed the criteria set by state officials, according to Ballad reports released by the Tennessee Department of Health.

Tennessee and Virginia have so far announced no steps to reduce time spent in Ballad ERs. The Tennessee health department, which has a more direct role in regulating Ballad, has each year issued a report saying the agreement that gave Ballad a monopoly “continues to provide a Public Advantage.” Department officials have twice declined to comment to KFF Health News on Ballad’s performance.

According to Ballad’s latest annual report, which was released this month and spans from July 2022 to June 2023, the median time that patients spend in Ballad ERs before being admitted to the hospital is nearly 11 hours. This statistic includes both time spent waiting and time being treated in the ER and excludes patients who weren’t admitted or left the ER without receiving care.

  • @[email protected]
    11•9 months ago

    One company that bought up most of the hospitals and small practices just up and decided to move out of the area, fire thousands of people and NOT sell the hospitals to people that put in offers. They DIDNT work with the cities they left. They sent a piece of mail to me letting me know I had 30 days to get prescriptions from my PCP and that I wouldn’t get any more. Now I have to find a new doctor… While working full time during the hours of doctors… While hoping to God my ADd meds last until I get a new doctor. They didn’t even pretend to try to work with anyone in the area on this. They don’t give a fuck about the people. This is not an industry that should be ran by corporations.

    One of the hospitals they are closing is jam packed, filled to the brim every day. How the fuck is it legal for them to just up and leave without working on a plan to slowly leave the area or transition to another company?