Hartford HealthCare Corporation Antitrust Litigation

Berger Montague was named co-lead counsel in this antitrust lawsuit against Hartford HealthCare Corporation (HHC) and its subsidiaries (Hartford Hospital, Hartford Healthcare Medical Group, and Integrated Care Partners). HHC is one of Connecticut’s largest healthcare systems, employing more than 41,000 across 500 facilities in 185 cities throughout the state. The case (Estuary Transit District v. Hartford Healthcare Corporation) was filed on behalf of Connecticut-based Estuary Transit District and Teamsters 671 Health Service & Insurance Plan, as well as all other healthcare benefit plans and insurers that have paid for services from the defendants since 2020.

The complaint was filed on June 14, 2024. It is brought under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, for unlawful monopolization, restraint of trade, and price fixing against HHC. The lawsuit alleges that since June 2020, Defendants carried out a multifaceted anticompetitive scheme with the intent to restrict competition and obtain supracompetitive prices from Plaintiffs and other health plans. 

Lawsuit Allegations

The lawsuit alleges the anticompetitive scheme included the following:

• Imposing “all or nothing” contract conditions on payers: Defendants required health plans that wanted to include “must-have facilities” in their networks to include all or nearly all of the Defendants’ facilities, regardless of the additional cost. The sole hospital in a geographic area would be considered a “must-have” facility.
• Imposing anti-tiering and anti-steering provisions in HHC’s contracts: Tiering and steering help lower healthcare costs by incentivizing members to use certain providers by charging smaller or higher co-pays based on certifications, ratings, or negotiated rates with healthcare providers. Defendants allegedly prohibited HHC contracts from containing these cost-saving measures. 
• Coercing physician practices to become ICP Providers: Once independent physicians join ICP, a subsidiary of HHC, they are prohibited from negotiating rates with health plans independent from the rates imposed by HHC. They are also prohibited from doing business with HHC’s competitors.  
• Trapping referrals within the ICP network: In addition to preventing independent physicians from negotiating their own rates and working with competitors, they are also required to only refer physicians to HHC facilities, regardless of whether it is best for the patient.

As a result of the above measures, defendants substantially foreclosed competition across general acute care inpatient hospital services and outpatient medical services in multiple markets of Connecticut. This anticompetitive scheme, the complaint alleges, artificially inflated healthcare costs and prices paid by the Plaintiffs as well as negatively affected the quality of healthcare services they received.

About Berger Montague

Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities and whistleblower cases, among other practice areas. For more than 50 years Berger Montague has played leading roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $60 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.