Boston-based Partners HealthCare has yet to decide whether to move forward with stalled plans to merge Melrose, Mass.-based Hallmark Health System into its system, according to a report from The Boston Globe.
Here are five things to know about the stalled merger.
1. Partners and Hallmark officials have recently looked at whether a deal is still possible. In November, Partners CEO David Torchiana, MD, and Hallmark CEO Alan Macdonald met with the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, which reviews proposed mergers and their impact on healthcare costs, according to the report.
2. Coleen Elstermeyer, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission's chief of staff, told The Boston Globe Partners executives have not indicated whether they would move forward with the merger. "We're still trying to figure that out," Dr. Torchiana added, according to the report. Hallmark did not comment.
3. Talks about whether a deal is still possible come after the merger was put on hold earlier this year, and after Partners, whose network includes 10 hospitals and 6,000 physicians, backed out of another deal to acquire South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass. Partners backed out of the South Shore deal after a Suffolk Superior Court Judge rejected a settlement deal in January that would have allowed Partners to acquire South Shore and Hallmark.
4. If Partners moves forward with the Hallmark deal, Hallmark's Melrose (Mass.)-Wakefield Hospital would be among the hospitals involved in the transaction. Hallmark also owns Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford, Mass.
5. Last year, the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission expressed concern that the merger would add to Partners' market power, increase healthcare spending as much as $23 million a year, and result in higher premiums for employers and consumers, according to the report. The commission did not tell The Boston Globe how it would respond if Partners pursued the deal again. But in his interview with the publication, Dr. Torchiana acknowledged there is little reason to believe the commission would respond differently if the same deal was presented. "I'd guess we'd have to come up with something that would be significantly different, in all probability," he added.
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