The Federal Trade Commission has spent 2026 widening what it treats as its healthcare beat, and hospital pricing is now squarely inside it. The agency on Oct. 5 warned 24 of the country’s largest health systems that incomplete, inaccurate or untimely price disclosures could violate federal consumer protection law, even when those organizations comply with CMS’ hospital price transparency rules.
That letter is one piece of a broader campaign. Since March, when FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson created a healthcare task force, the agency has steered an Ohio hospital away from its chosen buyer, forced seven ambulatory surgery center divestitures out of a $3.9 billion transaction, opened an antitrust investigation into the largest EHR vendor, sued a telehealth company over data sharing and billing practices, and settled insulin rebate cases with two of the three largest pharmacy benefit managers.
Here are nine FTC actions hospital leaders should have on their radar:
1. Price disclosures are now a consumer protection question. Mr. Ferguson on Oct. 5 sent letters to 24 large health systems urging them to review their pricing practices and correct problems, particularly for routine, nonemergency services scheduled in advance. The FTC said CMS’ price transparency rules set a baseline but do not give hospitals a safe harbor from liability under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
The agency said a disclosure can be deceptive if it omits physician fees, facility fees or other costs that lead a patient to believe they have been quoted the total price of care. It can be unfair if patients do not get complete information early enough to compare providers. An FTC spokesperson told Becker’s the agency is not disclosing the names of the 24 health systems.
2. Financial distress is no longer a shortcut through merger review. The FTC said Sept. 2 that its investigation into Columbus-based OhioHealth’s proposed purchase of Fairfield Medical Center in Lancaster, Ohio, raised serious competitive concerns, including higher costs and lower quality. Fairfield abandoned the deal and was acquired Sept. 1 by Chillicothe, Ohio-based Adena Health, now a five-hospital system.
“Today’s announcement should serve as a reminder that we will stop bad hospital deals,” Daniel Guarnera, director of the FTC’s bureau of competition, said. He called the standard for a “failing-firm argument” demanding and said the commission will go to court if a seller has not searched broadly for a buyer.
FTC staff will examine whether a seller solicited the full set of potential buyers, gave them enough time and equal access to information, negotiated in good faith and seriously weighed offers that raised fewer competitive concerns. Kaufman Hall M&A leaders told Becker’s the case raises the bar on process discipline, and that systems should preserve a plurality of options rather than building a sale around one predetermined partner.
3. The FTC is investigating the AI developers health systems are buying from. OpenAI and Anthropic are among the companies facing an FTC investigation into potential risks tied to their products, CNBC reported Sept. 30, citing an agency spokesperson who declined to name the other companies.
The inquiry follows a run of safety disclosures, including OpenAI’s report in July that its agents broke out of a testing environment. For health systems embedding foundation models in ambient documentation, revenue cycle and triage workflows, the open question is what a consumer protection action against a model developer would mean for downstream deployments and vendor contracts.
4. Patient portal fraud has become an FTC caseload. The agency has received more than 160 complaints referencing MyChart over the past five years, several tied to the current “Medicare Kit” phishing wave, according to Gizmodo.
The emails offer a free senior health package tied to Medicare wellness benefits and ask recipients to pay a shipping fee. Complainants in Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Indiana reported being charged twice, once for the advertised shipping cost and again by an unrelated company. More than 40 health systems have warned patients since mid-August, including Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Health, Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine and Cleveland-based MetroHealth.
5. An ASC consent order that outlasts the deal. The FTC on Aug. 25 approved a final consent order resolving antitrust concerns tied to Ascension’s $3.9 billion acquisition of ASC operator Amsurg. The vote was 2-0.
Ascension had to divest seven Amsurg facilities — six to Surgical Care Affiliates and one in Panama City, Fla. — to Florida Gastroenterology Center. The FTC alleged the deal as proposed would have limited competition for outpatient gastroenterology, ophthalmology and orthopedic procedures in Nashville, Tenn.; Panama City; Tulsa, Okla.; Waco, Texas; and Wichita, Kan. The condition with the longest tail is that Ascension must notify the FTC before acquiring any ASCs in those markets going forward.
6. Epic is under antitrust investigation. The FTC has opened an antitrust investigation into Verona, Wis.-based Epic and sent investigative demands to other health technology companies seeking information on how Epic grants or restricts access to patient data, Reuters reported Aug. 14, citing two unnamed sources.
Epic holds 43.7% of the U.S. acute care hospital EHR market, according to KLAS. An Epic spokesperson told Becker’s the company does not restrict competitors’ access to data, noting it was the first EHR to connect to TEFCA and publishes more than 1,000 APIs and interfaces on open.epic.
The inquiry lands alongside a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed in December and a separate suit from Particle Health, both over data-sharing practices. Epic has denied the allegations in each.
7. A telehealth competitor’s data practices drew a federal lawsuit. The FTC, joined by Utah and California, sued San Francisco-based Hims & Hers on July 29, alleging the telehealth company shared consumers’ sensitive health information with Meta, Snap and other advertising platforms despite telling users the data would stay private.
The complaint also alleges the company charged most consumers for prescriptions almost immediately after an online intake form, without the medical consultation it advertised, then enrolled them in subscriptions that were difficult to cancel. Hims & Hers said the suit disregards evidence it submitted during a nearly three-year investigation and that it will defend itself.
The case is a marker for any provider organization running direct-to-consumer digital front doors: marketing pixels, subscription billing and cancellation flows now sit inside the FTC’s enforcement perimeter, separate from HIPAA.
8. The PBM insulin cases are resolving, and the terms reach plan sponsors. The FTC reached a settlement with CVS Caremark announced July 14 that it said will secure up to $8.5 billion in consumer savings over 10 years and unlock up to $4.5 billion more through point-of-sale rebates over the same period.
Caremark must pass rebates through at the point of sale, delink manufacturer fees from list prices, increase transparency for health plans and give plan sponsors a path away from rebate guarantees and spread pricing. The agency reached a similar deal with Express Scripts in February, and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx reached a tentative agreement June 12, with terms not yet public.
The cases trace back to the FTC’s September 2024 lawsuit against the three largest PBMs over insulin rebate practices. Health systems that sponsor their own employee health plans are among the counterparties these terms are written for.
9. The structural pieces: a task force, certificate-of-need pressure and a stalled premerger rule. Mr. Ferguson created a healthcare task force in March spanning the Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Consumer Protection and Bureau of Economics, with coordination from HHS and the Justice Department. He cited healthcare’s roughly 18% share of the U.S. economy and named consolidation as a driver of higher prices and reduced quality.
The agency has also pressed states on certificate-of-need laws, which it argues create barriers to entry and limit consumer choice. CMS has tied some Rural Health Transformation Program funding to CON repeal, and the FTC warned Tennessee lawmakers that a gap between a COPA expiration and a CON repeal would be the worst possible outcome for patients.
One piece of the agenda has stalled. A federal judge in February vacated the FTC’s expanded Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification rule, finding the agency had not shown the benefits would reasonably outweigh the costs. The American Hospital Association in May reaffirmed its position that any future premerger requirements should exempt hospitals, arguing that “mergers can be economic lifelines for struggling hospitals.”
