Five weeks after filing a nearly identical lawsuit in a Columbus federal court, the same United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) attorneys filed a lawsuit in a New York City federal court against The New York and Presbyterian Hospital (“NYPH”). On March 26, 2026, the DOJ sued NYPH for using its Manhattan-based market power to force payors to agree to favorable contractual terms to the alleged detriment of patients and employers. A similar lawsuit was filed on February 20 against OhioHealth (see prior Friction Point article: OhioHealth Sued by DOJ and State of Ohio for Market Power and Contracting Practices).
At least half of the approximately 60 paragraphs in each complaint are nearly identical. In both complaints, the DOJ alleges that either NYPH or OhioHealth:
- Possess dominant market power in their defined geographic markets;
- Uses its market power to restrict payors from offering alternative plans and provider choices;
- Reduce competition and force patients and employers to pay higher prices for inpatient general acute care hospital services; and
- Violate federal antitrust laws.
There are two notable differences with the NYPH lawsuit. Unlike the OhioHealth suit, the DOJ was not joined in the action by the State Attorney General from New York. As a result, the claims against NYPH do not include state law-based claims. Second, the NYPH lawsuit contains more quoted statements attributed to representatives of NYPH, suggesting that the DOJ possesses more incriminating e-mails or documented evidence of incriminating anti-competitive statements.
The DOJ’s playbook goes farther back than earlier this year, however. The OhioHealth and NYPH lawsuits are also very similar to an action filed by the DOJ and the North Carolina Attorney General in 2016 against The Carolinas Health System. In fact, two of the attorneys representing the DOJ in 2016 are also counsel of record in both the OhioHealth and NYPH actions. That action ultimately resulted in an agreed judgment between the parties whereby the Carolinas Health System agreed to void certain payor contract language pertaining to steering patients to Carolinas facilities and to forgo requirements of being in a preferred status within payor plan options. The settlement was reached in 2019 after three years of discovery and litigation.
In all three cases, the DOJ’s actions seek to protect the interests – and profits – of highly-profitable private insurance companies to the detriment of non-profit health systems.
