Mississippi’s largest hospital quietly left the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative less than four months after joining as a founding member.
The University of Mississippi Medical Centre is no longer listed on the collaborative’s website.
It is unclear whether other hospital members will follow suit, as they did in 2023 when UMMC dropped its membership in the Mississippi Hospital Association.
UMMC and the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative declined to comment on this story.
The change comes shortly after Drew Snyder, the collaborative’s chief health policy officer, left to become deputy administrator of the federal Medicaid program.
The Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative hasn’t announced a replacement.
The new health-care group, announced in November, brought together the hospitals that had left the Mississippi Hospital Association, as well as the state’s community health centres and several other hospital systems.
The trade association splintered after the UMMC left in May 2023, with seven other hospitals following suit. Four more hospitals, all led by Gregg Gibbes, left the association in 2024.
In a letter to the Mississippi Hospital Association announcing its decision to leave, UMMC expressed concerns about transparency and communication. However, many saw the exodus of hospitals as a rebuke to the association’s support for Medicaid expansion.
The departure occurred just days after the Mississippi Hospital Association’s political action committee made its largest-ever donation to then-gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley, who is a strong supporter of Medicaid expansion.
According to a document obtained by Mississippi Today, the Mississippi Health Collaborative’s advocacy agenda for this year’s legislative session prioritises closing Mississippi’s health care coverage gap.
“Like most healthcare providers, Collaborative members support pathways to close the healthcare coverage gap, from traditional Medicaid expansion to other hybrid models,” according to the statement.
Its agenda also includes increased trauma care system funding, certificate of need reforms, and tax changes for health-care providers.
The collaborative has signed contracts for lobbying and consulting services with Capitol Resources’ health policy wing, Health Resources, based in Jackson.
Capitol Resources strongly supports Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. Since 2018, the firm’s political action committee has contributed more than $70,000 to Reeves.
Correction: A previous version of this story misrepresented UMMC’s membership in a hospital association. The reference has been removed.
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