ACM keeps in place the price ceiling imposed on southern Dutch hospital

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) keeps in place the price ceiling that it imposed in 2009 on treatments performed in the Admiraal De Ruyter Hospital (ADRZ) in the southern Dutch province of Zeeland. In 2009, ACM cleared the merger between several hospitals in Zeeland after the merger hospital ADRZ had promised it would honor a price ceiling. The price ceiling is determined by the average price of treatments of all hospitals in the Netherlands.

ADRZ had asked ACM to lift the price ceiling. The hospital believes that the price ceiling has become obsolete with the recent changes in the market such as the rise of independent treatment centers, and the fact that health insurers now try to buy health care services at the best price-quality ratio possible. ADRZ claims the paperwork that comes with the price ceiling is a burden.

ACM examined whether the market conditions since 2009 have changed so much that the then identified near-monopoly position of ADRZ has diminished, and that ADRZ is once again stimulated enough to make a competitive offer to health insurers. ACM has come to the conclusion that this is not the case. ACM considers the limited administrative burden in connection with the price ceiling less important than the prevention of price increases for patients.

That is why ACM keeps in place the price ceiling imposed on ADRZ in order to prevent the risk for larger price increases in Zeeland compared with the rest of the Netherlands.