Sanford-Fairview merger could slash services and raise prices, Minnesota nurses claim

MOORHEAD — The Minnesota Nurses Affiliation contends that the proposed merger between Sanford Well being and Fairview Well being Providers might lead to decreased providers and better costs.

The allegations in a report, “Healthcare at a Crossroads,” ship the most recent salvo by the nurses affiliation, an outspoken opponent of the proposed $11.7 billion merger between the 2 well being techniques.

“Executives’ profit-first strategy has slashed staffing ranges, closed hospitals and clinics and put progress above all else,” the affiliation’s report stated.

Minnesota Lawyer Normal Keith Ellison has held hearings across the state and has known as for Sanford and Fairview to supply extra details about the impacts of a merger. Different officers, together with legislators, even have expressed issues, akin to the way forward for M Well being Fairview College of Minnesota Medical Heart.

“Fairview’s wealth was created largely by taxpayers, charitable giving, and the shut partnership with the College of Minnesota,” the nurses affiliation report stated.

Invoice Gassen, president and CEO of Sanford, has recommended that the College of Minnesota might repurchase the medical middle from the mixed well being system. The goal date for finishing the merger is Might 31.

A lot of the report sought to make the case that the merger wouldn’t be good for shoppers, staff or communities.

“A merger between these two techniques would create one of many largest healthcare suppliers within the Higher Midwest and will dramatically change the lives of sufferers, healthcare staff, and their communities,” the report stated. “Mergers make our hospitals much less accountable and fewer related to communities, leading to larger prices for sufferers, reductions in providers, and elevated burnout for healthcare staff.”

In a joint assertion, Sanford and Fairview stated a mixed system can be “nicely positioned to reinvest in and strengthen native hospitals and the communities we serve throughout the state.”

Following the merger with North Nation Well being Providers in Bemidji, Sanford Well being invested greater than $100 million to extend entry to specialty care together with psychological well being, cardiology, orthopedics and oncology, Fairview and Sanford stated within the joint assertion.

“And after merging with Meritcare in 2009, Sanford Well being invested greater than $1 billion of capital within the northwest a part of the state,” the assertion added, bringing a top-level trauma middle to Fargo-Moorhead and a “state-of-the-art group hospital to Thief River Falls.”

As a mixed system, Fairview and Sanford are dedicated to creating important investments to reinforce well being care in Minnesota, some extent Sanford and Fairview stated they’ve made of their letter of intent to merge.

“In step with our observe document in different communities, the Letter of Intent features a strategic capital funding of $500 million from the mixed system into hospitals and amenities in Minnesota communities at present served by Fairview,” the joint assertion stated. “This funding displays our foundational dedication to increasing providers and rising entry to world-class well being take care of Minnesotans.”

The Minnesota Nurses Affiliation report cites analysis displaying that “cross-market” mergers — involving entities that don’t immediately compete in the identical native market — are more and more frequent and infrequently result in elevated costs.

Hospitals in cross-market mergers had relative value will increase of seven% to fifteen% if the acquisition was in-state, based on analysis cited by the report.

Earlier mergers and acquisitions by Sanford and Fairview typically have been adopted by closures, together with a pair of hospitals within the Twin Cities’ east metro space after being acquired by Fairview in 2017, based on the report.

“Fairview CEO James Hereford instituted main cuts at legacy HealthEast amenities virtually instantly after buying them, in the end closing Bethesda and St. Joseph hospitals throughout a world pandemic,” the report stated.

Each techniques have exhibited a “sample of decreasing and outright eliminating psychological well being inside techniques” when wanted most, the report stated.

Nurses at Sanford surveyed by the nurses affiliation described “reductions and eliminations to providers” at amenities since Sanford turned concerned, together with elimination of psychological well being providers, dwelling well being providers, cardiac care unit, intensive care unit, respiratory remedy providers and outpatient providers.

The report didn’t give the areas of the decreased or eradicated providers or present different specifics.

Selections made far-off can have an effect on care in native amenities, the report stated, citing for example directors in Fargo deciding when a facility might get surgical provides.

Nurses at Fairview and Sanford surveyed by the nursing affiliation recognized cuts to psychological well being. Between 2016 and 2020, the report stated, Fairview decreased psychological well being beds system-wide by virtually 15%.

Nurses surveyed cited cuts to psychological well being providers by Sanford, together with one who described it as “the largest unfavourable impression I’ve seen with Sanford as a complete,” the report stated. Sanford’s hospital in Worthington, Minnesota, closed its behavioral well being unit, shifting care to an Avera middle in Marshall, greater than an hour away.