• News

"Two Hospital Networks Agree to Merge, Raising Specter of Costlier Care"

The combination of Mount Sinai's specialty care and medical school and Continuum's primary care will create an integrated system to care for patients throughout their life cycle.

  • New York Times
  • (July 17, 2013)

Two major New York City hospital networks have agreed to merge, creating the largest private hospital system in the city, raising the prospect of higher prices for consumers, and positioning the new system to take advantage of coming changes under the federal health care law. The boards of the two hospital systems, The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Continuum Health Partners, a network of community-oriented hospitals that includes Beth Israel and the two St. Luke's-Roosevelt campuses, approved the merger in consecutive votes on Monday and Tuesday. The new enterprise would have more than 3,300 beds at seven campuses spread through Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, making it the largest hospital system in New York City outside of the public hospital system. Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Mount Sinai, said after the final vote on Tuesday that the merger would allow the hospitals to "be more efficient at what they do" and to make up for "the inability of the federal government or the state governments to be able to pay for the health care that people in the past have demanded." The combination of Mount Sinai's specialty care and medical school and Continuum's primary care would, he said, create "an integrated system that can take care of the patient for the whole life cycle for all degrees of problems." Learn more