
Reese Jackson, CEO, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center
Is the Virginia Antitrust Act now in play?
by James C. Sherlock
There is good news this morning for those of us hoping for more competition to regional healthcare monopolies in Virginia.
The Virginia Supreme Court (the Court) overturned the decision of the State Health Commissioner to deny the application of the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center (CRMC) to create an open heart surgical service.
Sentara Health, unsurprisingly, objected to the application and was a party to the case before the Court. It also had been a party to the hearing by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) COPN (Certificate of Public Need) adjudication officer. That official then made a recommendation against CRMC that the health commissioner accepted. The court found his decision to be fatally flawed.
The Court remanded the original decision to the new health commissioner for re-consideration. In doing so, it overturned decisions by the Chesapeake Circuit Court (made by a visiting Norfolk judge who failed to disclose a conflict of interest) and by the appeals court that upheld that original decision.
The court found that the health commissioner made an error of law and that the courts erred in both:
- deferring to the heath commissioner for interpretation of his agency’s own regulations without rigorous review of those regulations by the courts; and
- applying the harmless error doctrine to that error of law.