US hospitals defeat pharmacy residents’ wage-fixing lawsuit

• The case was filed last year against Johns Hopkins Hospital, New York Presbyterian Hospital, University of Chicago Medical Center, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and several other hospital systems. The lawsuit also named as a defendant the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which sets the rules for a matching program that connects resident pharmacists to hospitals and other medical providers.
• The plaintiffs, four former pharmacy residents, alleged that the defendants violated antitrust law by using the match program to keep compensation low and restrict the ability of residents to move from one program to another. They also alleged the defendants violated competition law by unlawfully exchanging resident compensation information.
• U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in her ruling found the plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege an antitrust conspiracy. Directors of residency programs sign a residency agreement, the judge said, but it “is not signed or adopted by all employer defendants collectively.”
• Boardman also said “the plaintiffs do not persuasively connect the dots” between the employer defendants’ posting of salaries in a public residency directory and lower salaries across the market.
• The hospitals and other defendants, including American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, had denied any wrongdoing. A lawyer for the plaintiffs declined to comment on the court’s order.
• Boardman gave the plaintiffs until Sept. 11 to file any amended lawsuit.

A group of major U.S. hospital systems and an accrediting organization on Thursday persuaded a federal judge in Maryland to dismiss a proposed class action alleging they conspired to restrict recruitment, hiring and compensation for resident pharmacists seeking advanced training.