Becker’s Hospital Review, citing the   Chicago Tribune, reports that Mark Neaman,  CEO of Evanston, Ill.-based NorthShore University HealthSystem,  has accused the Federal Trade Commission of “gerrymandering”.  He complains that the agency is only analyzing a little of the Chicago area’s healthcare market in its fight against NorthShore’s merger with Downer’s Grove, Ill.-based Advocate Health Care.

The FTC asserts that if NorthShore and Advocate merged they would operate a majority of the hospitals in the combined system’s  market, composed of northern Cook and southern Lake counties.

However, Mr. Neaman  asserted that  the combined entity would compete with hospitals throughout  the Chicago metro area, not just in northern Cook and southern Lake counties, and it would  only have 22 percent of inpatient beds in the six-county metro Chicago market.