Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center has requested an emergency exemption from review by the state’s Health Care Market Oversight program during the hospital’s attempted purchase of Surgery Center of Southern Oregon.
Oregon regulators have paused the deal while Asante declined to provide the requested documents and information.
Lawmakers created the Oregon Health Authority’s oversight process in 2022 to ensure hospital mergers did not increase costs or reduce patient access. The program began a preliminary review of Asante’s proposed purchase of the Medford surgery center, which the hospital partially owns, in October 2025.
But that review ground to a halt after Asante refused to provide three years of payer contracts for the hospital and surgery center. The hospital said providing the documents would be too costly and time-consuming, while admitting that the per-procedure cost of services at the surgery center would increase after the deal.
“The review has remained paused as the organizations have so far refused to provide all the requested information,” OHA public affairs specialist Franny White said in a statement.
Asante filed a public records request for past OHA reviews, alleging that in only 6.5% of cases did the agency require a large volume of payor contracts during a preliminary review.
“The process has been significant. Views may differ on why that is,” Asante attorney Michael Lampert wrote to OHA. “It came as a disappointment to Asante that OHA chose to respond not in a spirit of productive dialogue, but instead with a threat of criminal sanctions.”
Another sticking point arose when OHA requested an explanation for a decline in Asante’s community benefit spending from 2022 to 2024. Asante initially responded that the information was not relevant to the deal but later provided it.
In its request for an emergency exemption, Asante has argued that the surgery center is on the brink of collapse.
“The options facing [Surgery Center of Southern Oregon] now appear to be either to be acquired by Asante or to close, in which case its presence as a potentially lower-cost provider would be eliminated anyway,” according to Asante.
The request for exemption is the third since the oversight program began in 2022, according to OHA, with only one granted.
“We remain committed to working collaboratively with HCMO to move through this emergency approval process in a timely and transparent manner to save this important access point for surgical patients,” Asante said in a statement.
