ALBANY — Officials at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital said Monday they were “amazed” that a for-profit hospital would accuse Phoebe of trying to monopolize the health care business in Southwest Georgia.
“That a for-profit hospital like Palmyra Medical Center, owned by HCA, a corporation valued at $33 billion, would feel like they can’t compete with a stand-alone, non-for- profit community hospital like Phoebe,” said Phoebe Director of Corporate Communications Jackie Ryan — “Frankly, we’re amazed.”
On Thursday, Palmyra filed an antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Phoebe, its parent company Phoebe Putney Health System Inc. and the Hospital Authority of Albany and Dougherty County, which allows Phoebe to manage the publicly-owned hospital assets.
The suit, which asks for an injunction and damages, alleges Phoebe engages in anticompetitive practices that hinder Palmyra’s ability to offer services to commercially insured patients and keep health care costs high for Southwest Georgia patients.
Ryan responded that “Phoebe competes very aggressively every day in this marketplace.
“We offer the best care at the lowest possible costs, and we provide charity and indigent care to any resident that needs it and without any burden to the taxpayer,” she said.
Ryan said it was a business model adopted by Phoebe’s board of directors a quarter- century ago that allows Southwest Georgians to obtain top-quality care without leaving the region.
A week ago, Palmyra also filed a letter of intent with the Georgia Department of Community Health to provide obstetrical services, which has only ever been available in Albany at Phoebe. Phoebe has opposed Palmyra’s repeated applications to obtain a certificate of need from DCH.
A day earlier on July 1, a certificate of need reform law passed by the Georgia legislature this spring went into effect, lifting a CON patient- count requirement, though the law’s total impact has not been realized.
“It’s pretty ironic, after they allege that they can’t compete, then they file a letter of intent to provide OB services,” Ryan said.
Ryan said Phoebe’s lawyers will file an answer to the lawsuit within the time allotted, but called the antitrust suit another distraction from the hospital’s primary focus on providing quality medical services.
“Albany has had too many lawsuits filed in health care,” Ryan said. “We’ve been through some very rough attempts at distracting us,” such as an earlier class-action suit levied against Phoebe and private nonprofit hospitals around the United States.
“We have been through some pretty strong assaults on the legal side in recent years from the likes of Richard Scruggs and company,” she said. “Our focus is on that patient that comes through the door, and that’s where it should be.”
The class-action suit, filed by a team of lawyers led by Scruggs, who was recently disbarred and sentenced to prison for attempting to bribe a judge, was dismissed against Phoebe.
William Hedrick of Albany and Russell Wofford, Christine Hopkinson and Jeffrey Spigel of King and Spalding in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. are representing Palmyra in the antitrust case.
Palmyra Marketing Director Eric Riggle said Monday that the hospital’s position would not change.
“This is about one community not being fully served because of a series of monopolies by Phoebe Putney in Albany,” Riggle said.
“It is irrelevant that Palmyra is affiliated with other hospitals in other cities, but it is predictable that Phoebe would attempt to distract the community from the facts of this dispute. Being a not-for- profit institution doesn’t justify violating antitrust laws.”