By Elisabeth Rosenthal
When Mark Finney moved to southwestern Virginia with his young family a decade ago, there were different hospital systems and a range of independent doctors to choose from.
But when his knee started aching in late 2020, he discovered that Ballad Health was the only game in town: He went to his longtime primary care doctor, now employed by Ballad, who sent him to an orthopedist’s office owned by Ballad. That doctor sent him to get an X-ray at a Ballad-owned facility and then he was referred to a physical therapy center called Mountain States Rehab, which was now owned by Ballad as well.
When the price of his physical therapy doubled overnight — to nearly $200 for approximately 30 minutes — there was nowhere else to go, because Ballad Health effectively had a monopoly on care in 29 counties of the Appalachian Highlands in northeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, northwestern North Carolina, and southeastern Kentucky.
“I was stuck,” said Finney, a college professor. “My wife now drives 50 miles to see a doctor that’s not part of Ballad, and I don’t have a doctor anymore.”