LESSONS LEARNED FROM HCA’S PURCHASE OF MISSION HOSPITAL IN ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

This study examines what lessons can be learned from the events leading up to, and following, HCA Healthcare’s 2019 purchase of the nonprofit Mission Health hospital system based in Asheville, North Carolina. That acquisition has garnered local and national attention due to concerns about what motivated the sale, changes at the principal hospital and in the medical community following the sale, and the regulatory environment in which these events occurred.

Following an Introduction and Executive Summary, the study’s comprehensive findings, analysis, and recommendations consist of the following seven parts.

The study’s principal investigator and author is Mark A. Hall, J.D., Professor of Law and Public Health at Wake Forest University and an Affiliated Scholar with the UCSF/UC Law Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy. Colleagues at Wake Forest University who contributed to this work are Doug Easterling, Ph.D., Joe Singleton, J.D., and Laura McDuffee, M.P.A.

This research is funded by a grant from the Arnold Foundation. It had no control over, or even input into, how this research was conducted or how information gleaned is analyzed or reported. The Introduction describes the study’s methodology.