DOJ sues hospital contracting
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued hospitals this year over alleged contracting tactics that lock payers into ‘‘all‑or‑nothing’’ deals and reduce competition. The report names OhioHealth and NewYork‑Presbyterian as targets in a broader crackdown on how systems commercialize market power rather than just on mergers. (medcitynews.com)
The Justice Department has opened a new antitrust front in healthcare, suing two hospital systems in 2026 over insurer contracts instead of challenging a merger. (justice.gov, justice.gov) On February 20, the Department of Justice and the Ohio attorney general sued OhioHealth in federal court in Columbus, saying the system forces insurers to put OhioHealth in every commercial network they sell. The government said OhioHealth owns or manages 16 hospitals and outpatient facilities across Ohio and is the largest system in central Ohio. (justice.gov, justice.gov) On March 26, the Department of Justice and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan sued NewYork-Presbyterian in the Southern District of New York, accusing it of using similar restrictions. The department said NewYork-Presbyterian operates eight hospitals and many outpatient sites and is the largest hospital system in New York City. (justice.gov, justice.gov) The contracts at issue are known as “all-or-nothing” clauses: a dominant system tells an insurer to take every hospital in the system or none of them. The Justice Department says those terms can block cheaper, narrower insurance plans built around lower-cost rivals. (justice.gov, justice.gov) In the OhioHealth complaint, the government said the system has used these restrictions since at least 2003 and has blocked insurers not only from steering patients to lower-cost hospitals but also from telling patients those options exist. The complaint says that keeps premiums and out-of-pocket costs higher and makes it harder for rival hospitals to gain enough volume to compete on price and quality. (justice.gov) The NewYork-Presbyterian case shows the same theory applied to a different market: New York City instead of Columbus, Ohio. The Justice Department said NewYork-Presbyterian’s contracts “preclude insurers and employers” from offering budget-conscious plans and called the case its second hospital contracting suit of the year. (justice.gov, courthousenews.com) That marks a shift in emphasis from the merger fights that usually define hospital antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department’s healthcare competition page lists “all-or-nothing clauses” as one example of conduct that can harm competition even when no deal is being proposed. (justice.gov) The legal hook in both cases is Section 1 of the Sherman Act, the federal law that bars agreements that restrain trade. In Ohio, the state also joined under the Valentine Act, Ohio’s antitrust statute. (justice.gov, justice.gov) OhioHealth and NewYork-Presbyterian have not posted public statements about the suits in the press materials and newsroom pages reviewed for this story. The cases are now in federal court, where the government is asking judges to stop the systems from enforcing the disputed contract terms. (ohiohealth.com, nyp.org, justice.gov, justice.gov)
