University Health Hospital and its parent company Biomedical Research Foundation has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Willis-Knighton Health System.
KSLA News 12 has obtained a copy of the the lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday morning naming Willis Knighton as defendant in a suit alleging the hospital system has a monopoly level market share in the relevant Shreveport-Bossier City hospital market “and has exploited that position to harm the public.”
Click here to view the full lawsuit.
Chairman of the University Health board Steve Skrivanos and anti-trust attorney David Ettinger have previously said they believe there is a plan to move commercial insured patients from University Health to Willis-Knighton.
“LSU’s doctors, a certain portion of them will practice at Willis-Knighton clinics, we understand that they will then treat their commercially insured patients at the Willis-Knighton clinics,” said Ettinger.
The lawsuit comes after LSU outlined grievances about hospital’s management. LSU outlined 3 primary claims to support why it believes BRF has failed to live up to its contract responsibilities as the operator of public hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe.
In a letter to University Health employees dated July 11, representatives from BRF and University Health state they “do not agree with LSU’s claims and will aggressively respond.”
The letter goes on to blame Willis-Knighton for trying to steal University Health’s clients.
Skrivanos said Willis-Knighton is trying to undermine the business going on at the public hospital.
“It was only through numerous public records requests to LSU that we finally discovered Willis-Knighton’s plan to take away our clinics – just days into our partnership. We believe the unfortunate circumstance of all of this is that some who seek to undermine the BRF and University Health are putting politics ahead of patients.”
Representatives from Willis-Knighton released a statement Thursday morning. In it, they state they have “a 30 year public record and history of being a staunch supporter and vocal advocate of the LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport (LSU Medical School).”
The letter goes on to say they are aware of the dispute between LSU and BRF and hope it will be resolved before healthcare and healthcare education are interrupted.
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