From Staff Reports 

HCA Healthcare and Mission Health “are pushing back on claims they run a monopolistic organization in Western North Carolina, something six area plaintiffs have been trying to prove in court for more than a year,” the Asheville Citizen Times reported on Dec. 14.

“A Dec. 5 motion to dismiss in WNC’s first antitrust lawsuit against Mission and HCA — so complex that it was in January removed from Buncombe’s Superior Court early and is currently working its way through North Carolina Business Court — claims plaintiffs’ monopoly arguments are lacking proof and fail to properly allege Mission did or is doing anything wrong when it comes to monopoly power,” the ACT noted.

“Specifically, HCA and Mission are fighting new alleged proof that they control a monopoly not only in Asheville but in areas outside WNC’s largest metropolitan footprint, which the lawsuit calls the “outlying” markets. These include Yancey, Transylvania, McDowell and Macon Counties, though Mission Health claims to serve 18 counties near the mountains.

“On Oct. 31, plaintiffs’ attorneys filed a revamped complaint that reiterated all the claims made when it was originally filed on Aug. 10, 2021, but also adding data from CMS Medicare discharges, an IBM Watson analysis, the North Carolina Hospital Association, hospital license renewal applications and HCA’s certificate of need application to build 67 new acute care beds at its Asheville location.

“Plaintiffs’ attorneys added the new data to double down on an argument they already had made and which Business Court Judge Mark Davis found lacking in a Sept. 19 ruling, namely that HCA doing business as Mission doesn’t hold monopoly power in both Asheville and the outlying markets,” the ACT reported.