A federal judge found N.E. Philly cancer docs’ antitrust allegations against Jefferson Health to be “lifeless”
U.S. District Court Judge Kai N. Scott explained her decision to allow Jefferson Health to start using only its own oncologists at three hospitals in an opinion published Monday.
Five oncologists who sued Thomas Jefferson University for allegedly trying to monopolize cancer care in Northeast Philadelphia failed to convince a federal judge that they have a “reasonable probability” of winning those antitrust claims.
That’s a key reason why U.S. District Court Judge Kai N. Scott denied a bid by the Alliance Cancer Specialists oncologists to temporarily block Jefferson from excluding them from treating patients with cancer and blood disorders at Jefferson’s Frankford, Torresdale, and Bucks County Hospitals, according to her 27-page opinion published late Monday afternoon.
The judge called the physicians’ antitrust claims “lifeless” and said she was not convinced that the doctors would suffer irreparable harm if she allowed Jefferson to proceed with its plan to use only its employed Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center oncologists to treat cancer patients at those three hospitals. Jefferson’s action took effect this past Saturday, Sept. 16.
The five doctors are based in Bensalem, but have served Northeast Philadelphia, particularly neighborhoods around Torresdale Hospital, for decades. One of the oncologists, Allen Terzian, was chief of oncology at Torresdale when Jefferson acquired it and the other two hospitals in 2016, according to court filings.
Jefferson is allowing the doctor to see patients at the hospital as internists, but not as oncologists.
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The action disputed by the Alliance Cancer Specialists oncologists marks Jefferson’s latest effort to shape cancer care at Torresdale, which opened in 1977 and has 253 licensed beds.
In February 2021, Jefferson announced the opening of a 14,000-square-foot Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center satellite clinic at Torresdale. It includes an infusion suite for chemotherapy. Earlier, Jefferson had evicted Alliance from a building where it had an infusion center, according to court filings.
That helped extend the reach of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center — which competes with regional market leader Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, as well as Temple Health’s Fox Chase Cancer Center and the MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper — farther from its Center City base.
While Judge Scott ruled against the oncologists, based on legal standards for issuing a temporary restraining order, she said some factors weighed in their favor.
She said that losing oncology privileges at the Jefferson hospitals would be more damaging to the Alliance Cancer Specialists doctors than had she granted their request to block Jefferson from using exclusively Sidney Cancer Center doctors.
Patients are also put into a tough spot, she noted. They are faced with the choice of remaining with their Alliance doctor and going to a more distant hospital or being treated by a different oncologist if they at Torresdale, the judge said.
Finally, she found that “the public interest is better served by keeping ACS in business and allowing their physicians to continue to serve the community that they have been serving for decades.”