Further investigation needed into merger between hospitals

Dutch hospital groups Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the Dutch city of Dordrecht and Rivas Zorggroep in the city of Gorinchem must apply for a license for their planned merger. That was the conclusion of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM ) after its preliminary investigation.

The Albert Schweitzer Hospital has several locations in and around the city of Dordrecht (Zwijndrecht/Sliedrecht/Ridderkerk). Rivas Zorggroep has one hospital in Gorinchem, the Beatrix Hospital, an outpatient’s clinic in the city of Leerdam and, in addition, several care facilities such as residential care and nursing homes, home care, and maternal and child health centers in the regions of Alblasserwaard, Vijfheerenlanden and Land van Heusden en Altena. All of these cities and regions are near Rotterdam.

ACM established on the basis of its preliminary investigation that the hospitals are each other’s main competitors in part of the region, and that the merger would take away mutual competition. Moreover, health insurers and patient organizations argue that the hospitals have not yet demonstrated what the benefits of the merger are.

If the hospital groups decide to apply for a merger license, ACM will launch a further investigation into the merger’s effects on patients and health insurers. ACM will then assess whether enough hospital options for patients will remain after the merger, and whether health insurers will have enough options to make arrangements with the hospitals. ACM sets great store to the opinions of patient associations and health insurers, and it has carefully weighed all of the different arguments. ACM’s method of assessing mergers and collaborations in the health care industry is explained in the document ‘Assessing mergers and collaborations in hospital care’, which can be found on ACM’s website.