HARRISBURG – Attorney General Linda Kelly recently announced the payment of $100,00 to the Department of Aging’s PACE program to help pay for urological drugs for uninsured Pennsylvanians.
Kelly said the payment comes as part of a Final Order entered into with Urology of Central Pennsylvania (UCPA) resolving monopoly concerns with the 2005 merger of the only five independent urology practices in the Harrisburg area.
The merger allowed UCPA to open the Prostate Cancer Center, a facility which provides radiation oncology to treat prostate cancer. Since opening the center, the doctors at UCPA have referred nearly all their prostate cancer patients, for whom radiation oncology was the appropriate treatment, to their own center.
Kelly said that prior to the merger, the doctors referred prostate cancer patients to a variety of radiation oncology treatment centers in the area. They also stopped providing a form of radiation oncology involving the implantation of radioactive seeds in the prostate.
Kelly said that a review of the merger shows that it substantially lessened competition for urology services, which has resulted in UCPA requesting and negotiating price increases for its services from area health insurance plans.
As part of the Final Order, UCPA agreed that it would provide all patients for whom radiation oncology or CT scans were appropriate, a list of other local providers for treatment who provide those services. They also agreed to disclose what UCPA will charge the consumer and the consumer’s health plan for those services.
Kelly said to ensure that health plans will be able to offer urological services in the Harrisburg market, UCPA is required to negotiate in good faith with health plans. Failure to negotiate in good faith can result in binding arbitration to resolve contract terms. UCPA denies that it has engaged in any wrongdoing.
“Our settlement provides consumers with important information so they can make informed decisions about the price and quality of their health care,” Kelly said. “Providing consumers this information will ultimately make the health care market in South Central Pennsylvania more competitive.”
The case was handled by Deputy Attorneys General Tracy W. Wertz and Jennifer A. Thomson and Chief Deputy Attorney General James A. Donahue, III of the Attorney General’s Antitrust Section.