Urgent Care Operator Files Suit over Health System ‘Anticompetitive Conduct’

Wahidullah Medical Corporation, which does business as Redwood Urgent Care and Laboratory, has filed an antitrust suit against St. Joseph Health, alleging that the system has an “entrenched monopoly” that it leverages to prohibit patients from using nonaffiliated lab services. Besides damaging Redwood’s business, the suit claims that St. Joseph’s tactics allow them to charge exorbitant prices that cost patients and insurers more than they’d be paying otherwise. Redwood alleges that St. Joseph Health prevents lab-test results from Redwood Lab from being shared electronically with its facilities. “Redwood Lab is unaware of any medical provider other than St. Joseph Health Medical Group…that has blocked receipt of electronic medical test results from Redwood Lab,” court papers state. In some instances in which patients presented hard copies of lab results from Redwood, it says, those patients were told by St. Joseph that they went to “the wrong lab” and that their results can only be accepted from the “right” lab—which would be those affiliated with St. Joseph. St. Joseph has told local media that it is unable to comment on active litigation.