Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison says a deal announced Wednesday by Fairview and doctors at the University of Minnesota is critical for preventing a damaging “unwind” of agreements that will expire next year for funding the U’s academic health program.
Recruiting and retaining doctors at the university, as well as the U’s research and teaching mission, were all threatened by instability if the three parties embarked on the lengthy process of disentangling their operations, Ellison says.
The U signaled strong opposition to the plan Wednesday.
Ellison, who has been involved in the matter this year because his office reviews health care transactions and is the primary regulator of nonprofits in the state, called on the university to join negotiations for remaining issues such as provisions for graduate medical education and joint branding of hospitals and clinics.
Fairview and the university currently market clinic and hospital services under the brand M Health Fairview.
“The possibility of an unwind of the agreements that would have been devastating for all three parties, their staff and patients, and the provision of medicine in Minnesota at large, was real and growing,” Ellison said in a statement.
He added: “With today’s agreement, an unwind is now a far more distant possibility than it was before.”
The attorney general’s strategic facilitator Lois Quam has been working since the spring on strategies to bring the parties together for a new agreement, including a now-abandoned proposal for Fairview to merge with Duluth-based Essentia Health.
