In re Mission Health Antitrust Litigation

Berger Montague is co-lead counsel in this antitrust class action against several defendants, including HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest for-profit hospital networks, that owns and operates Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina as numerous health care facilities in the surrounding seven counties in Western North Carolina. 

Plaintiffs bring claims under Sections 1 And 2 of the Sherman Act, alleging that HCA Healthcare and related entities engaged in a multi-pronged scheme to illegally maintain and enhance their market power and restrain trade in markets for inpatient general acute care in hospitals and for outpatient care in the Asheville region as well as five surrounding counties.  The alleged multifaceted anticompetitive scheme, includes (1) imposing “all-or-nothing” tying provisions that require health insurance plans that want to include Mission in their network to contract with all of Defendants’ inpatient and outpatient services; (2) imposing anti-steering and anti-tiering provisions in payer contracts that prevent payers from steering patients to less expensive and/or higher quality facilities to promote competition and reduce prices; (3) imposing “gag” clauses in payer contracts that prevent payers from communicating with employers and patients about better prices offered by Mission competitors. 

Plaintiffs allege that HCA Healthcare’s anticompetitive scheme raised prices in those markets have increased and the quality of healthcare has been dramatically reduced at Mission Hospital and throughout Western North Carolina, a region historically lauded for its quality healthcare services.

On February 21, 2024, Chief Judge Martin Reidinger denied HCA Healthcare’s motion to dismiss, allowing discovery, which is ongoing, to move forward.  

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.