AHA raises serious concerns with study on consolidation, wages

In a letter to the editor, AHA today expressed concerns with a recent Modern Healthcare article presenting the findings of a study on health system consolidation and employee wages. “We are concerned about Modern’s article presenting the findings of a study on consolidation as established fact given that it is identified as a working paper and has yet to go through a rigorous peer review process,” wrote AHA General Counsel Melinda Hatton. “Among the many serious concerns about the study are its lack of rigor in the definitions and assumptions it used, and absence of data on total compensation and the recognition of other obvious factors that could affect wage growth. All these factors may result in overstated or skewed results. For instance, the results are based on only 21 geographic areas out of almost 400 included in the study to make a link between wages and mergers, so its sample is largely not even statistically significant much less generalizable.”