Leaders from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare and Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems are expecting less antitrust scrutiny under the incoming Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission.
"I think, largely speaking, the FTC and the antitrust environment will probably change and be more favorable for business in the coming four years, Tenet CEO Saum Sutaria, MD, said Nov. 12 at the UBS Global Healthcare Conference.
Dr. Sutaria said that on the acute care side, "on the margin, there are probably opportunities that would get less scrutiny going forward." He added, however, that any regulatory changes are less likely to affect Tenet's ambulatory business, United Surgical Partners International.
"The market for USPI is not ambulatory service centers, it's ambulatory service centers plus all of the hospital and in many cases, the doctor's offices," he said. "It's an incredibly expansive market, so while we're a small fraction of ASCs, we're in a much smaller fraction of medical loss ratio, if you want to look at it that way, in terms of where the expenditures go."
Speaking at the same conference, CHS President and CFO Kevin Hammons said that the FTC environment has been difficult over the past four years and they've seen a "different group of buyers" than they did from 2016 to 2020.
"We've seen deals where nonprofits out of Florida are buying assets in Alabama, or in North Carolina, we're seeing nonprofits buying assets in South Carolina," he said. "We sold our hospital in Cleveland, Tenn., to a nonprofit out of Georgia. These are not traditional markets that those buyers used to look at."
Mr. Hammons said he thinks the FTC environment changes under the new administration and "probably makes getting deals done a bit easier."
"Having said that, there hasn't really been a shortage of buyers over the past couple of years, it's just been a different group."