UPMC-Highmark Battle Gets Accelerated Timeline

The ongoing public spectacle that is the UPMC/Highmark power struggle for the patient dollars of Pittsburgh will proceed in earnest, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A district court judge ruled that “a series of lawsuits involving UPMC, West Penn Allegheny Health System, Highmark and a group representing insurance ratepayers will not be stayed, but instead will continue into an aggressive discovery schedule that starts tomorrow.” That discovery process will begin with the presentation of evidence from the DoJ investigation into whether UPMC or Highmark were monopolies (an examination that resulted in the government clearing the way for Highmark to proceed with its half-billion-dollar buy-up of the struggling West Penn Allegheny Health System). Last week, UPMC alleged that Highmark had artificially inflated the value of WPAHS in an effort to reduce the appearance of its being a monopoly when Highmark moved to take over the struggling health system.