VISTA: TO BE ACQUIRED BY GREEN SPRING HEALTH
Green Spring Health Services of Columbia, MD, announcedThis is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
yesterday that it will buy San Diego-based Vista Behavioral
Health Plans for $6 million, Baltimore Sun reports. "The
acquisition continues Green Spring's rapid consolidation in the
managed behavioral health care field" and will add 600,000
members to Green Spring's business, "which provides managed
behavioral care to 16 million people." Green Spring is one of
four companies that together control more than 70% of the market.
In April, Green Spring bought Philadelphia-based Mainstay Inc.,
which also has 600,000 members. And earlier this month, Green
Spring "announced the purchase of two employee assistance plans,
one in Pennsylvania and one in Oregon, covering 185,000
enrollees."
IMPACT
The Vista deal allows Green Spring entrance into the
California market, "including a difficult-to-get state license to
operate a specialty HMO." Green Spring CEO Dr. Henry Harbin said
the rate of acquisitions is "going to accelerate." He said, "We
are currently in discussions with another half-dozen small to
medium-sized companies." According to Harbin, many of the
companies are interested in selling "because they are losing
business as [the larger] HMOs consolidate." Monica Oss,
president of Open Minds, a Pennsylvania consulting firm that
publishes newsletters in the behavioral health industry, said the
consolidation of Vista with Green Spring "means that the 'select
remaining managed behavioral care companies' have huge power to
set prices, establish clinical practice patterns and 'have
greater control over which providers have access to the market
and which don't'" (Salganik, 8/15).