Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

Why the feds block some hospital marriages—and bless others

Modern Healthcare: It's been five months since federal anti-trust regulators threw cold water on the marriage between Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University HealthSystem, dashing hopes of creating one of the biggest hospital networks in the nation.Will Presence Health and Ascension, respectively the largest Catholic hospital systems in Illinois and in the U.S., succumb to the same fate? It's not likely, experts say.On Tuesday, Chicago-based Presence and St. Louis-based Ascension announced that they plan to merge. Presence would be owned by Ascension, but operate in a joint venture called AMITA Health, which Ascension shares with Adventist Midwest Health. Presence still plans to sell two downstate hospitals to OSF HealthCare.

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