Missouri AG BJC-Saint Luke's (Department of Health and Senior Services)

Good morning,

I have noted some issues and requested some clarification in red below, please provide clarification on this request prior to my proceeding with fulfillment. If no response is received within 30 days your request will be considered closed.

Best,

[cid:image002.png@01D8DEE3.9E5E9210]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Good morning,

I have noted some issues and requested some clarification in red below, please provide clarification on this request prior to my proceeding with fulfillment. If no response is received within 30 days your request will be considered closed.

Best,

[cid:image002.png@01D8DEE3.9E5E9210]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Department of Health and Senior Services
The Missouri Sunshine Law Office
P.O. Box 570
Jefferson City, MO 65109

December 1, 2023

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the The Missouri Sunshine Law, I hereby request the following records:

All documents and written communication including, and relating to, the merger review of BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke's Health System.

The requested information may include but is not limited to: emails, call logs, text messages, copies of documents reviewed, transcripts of interviews, letter of intent, and definitive agreement. In order to search emails I will need you to provide either email addresses or domains for representatives at each hospital. Also keywords for the search on correspondence will assist in narrowing the results of a generalized search, keywords can often times be acceptable in the case that email addresses or domains for outside entities are not available. In order for me to search call logs you must provide phone numbers for which I can search for, these include phone numbers/names of individuals you wish me to search for the Department of Health and Senior Services as well as any applicable phone numbers to/from the 2 Health Systems. I will also need a date range in which you wish for me to search either/both emails and call logs.

I'm also requesing access to all documents and written communication between the Office of the Attorney General of Missouri and the Federal Trade Commission regarding the merger between BJC HealthCare and Saint Luke's Health System. Since the merger was proposed earlier this year, the date range for this record search should be between May 1, 2023 to November 29, 2023. The Department of Health and Senior Services cannot search communications from the Attorney General’s office, this portion of the request will need to be redirected to the Attorney General’s Office.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Samantha Liss

Dear Ms. Liss,

Per our phone conversation I am awaiting email domains and phone numbers for the search for correspondence, phone logs, text messages, and any other applicable correspondence to this request. You have also submitted part 2 of this request (Attorney General’s correspondence) to the Office of the Attorney General and I will not be acknowledging that part of your request.

On December 7, 2023, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services received your request for records regarding BJC Healthcare and Saint Lukes Health System. I am responding within three business days as required by §610.023.3, RSMo

We are actively working to fulfill your request. Records shall be extensively reviewed to protect closed or confidential information under Missouri Law. §610.021, RSMo.

At this time, the Department is working on a significant number of Sunshine Law Requests and as a result, we will need additional time to provide you with an estimated cost and number of responsive records. Due to the extensive process of search, review and obtainment of records, we estimate that your request will be fulfilled by January 10, 2024.

Before providing responsive records, the Department must:

1. Process and review the Sunshine Law request;
2. Notify relevant staff members of the request to obtain physical, electronic or other potentially responsive records that are not immediately accessible to the staff reviewers(s), if applicable.
3. Staff reviewer will then review the records to determine if they are responsive to the request;
4. Staff reviewer converts all responsive records in an accessible and useable format; and
5. Compile or print the responsive documents.

Please note that the above process is dependent upon the availability of other Department staff members to locate records, the volume of the request, other active Department Sunshine Law Requests, and the on-going work of staff reviewers.

§610.026, RSMo allows for collection of fees, including search, research, and staff time for retrieving, identifying, providing the requested records. Please note, that an invoice will be sent to you for any charges incurred in the fulfillment of your request prior to release of responsive records. The department charges $27.43 per hour for clerical time and ten cents per page for paper copies not larger than nine inches by fourteen inches.

Sincerely,

[cid:image002.png@01D8DEE3.9E5E9210]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Ms. Liss,

Did you have email domains for the portion of your search on the BJC and Saint Luke’s merger? It appears in your original request you were only wanting FTC emails to/from the Attorney General’s office, those emails we cannot search for, you will have to request that from the Attorney General’s office.
If you are wishing to modify your request to Health and Senior Services to now include the Federal Trade Commission I can do that, but in order to search for communications between DHSS and BJC or Saint Luke’s I will need the email domains for those 2 entities.

Best,

[cid:image002.png@01D8DEE3.9E5E9210]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Yes, I will add that to the DHSS search.

To recap:

Email search for-
To/from/cc:@health.mo.gov
To/from/cc: @ftc.gov; @bjc.org; @saint-lukes.org; @ago.mo.gov
Between May 1, 2023 – November 29, 2023

I will be in touch once this search is complete.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA2CD3.DBD8EFC0]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Good morning,

I have obtained preliminary results from your email search request. Due to the nature of the request and the lack of keywords to narrow the results we have received 11,551 results. To review these results for responsiveness to your request I estimate it will take 58 hours at a rate of $27.43/hour.

I do anticipate that the results have turned over many emails that are not what you are looking for, but instead are simply hitting on the domains which are widely used for many email subjects, I recommend you provide key words to add to this search to help narrow those results. I will hold this request until I get further guidance from you and how you wish to proceed.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA2DA0.023F96B0]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Good morning,

The search you requested was re-ran with the specified email addresses you listed below. However, narrowing to these email addresses yielded no change in results, meaning, no results from ago.mo.gov were found in the first search.
It is our belief that the majority of emails being found in this search are generalized BJC and/or Saint Luke’s day to day correspondence. This could potentially be vital records requests/inquiries, COVID related correspondence and other topics not related to a merger. It will simply pull everything that hits on those domains related to BJC and Saint Lukes. It is the belief that any discussion of a merger would be very minimal as Department of Health and Senior Services has no legal requirements when a merger takes place, essentially it is up to the FTC, not the state agency to approve a merger.

If you wish to narrow further please respond with specific keywords and we can apply those to the search as well.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA3E21.0070B440]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Ms. Liss,

Per my email below, would you like to further narrow your request, or do you wish for us to bill and provide the results we currently have? At this time we have over 11,000 results based on the criteria you provided. The fee to review these results are based on an average clerical rate of $30.57/hour, totaling $1,765.57 to review. Please advise how you wish to proceed.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA43A7.C9360110]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Good morning Ms. Liss,

I am following up on this, how would you prefer me to proceed? If no response is received by February 10, 2024, your request will be considered closed.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA43A7.C9360110]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

We can revise the request to add the word “merger”. I will run the new search and let you know. Just for everyone’s understanding the following domains and time frame will now be searched with the keyword “merger”:

Email Addresses to be Searched*: All messages between (To/from/cc) any “@health.mo.gov” email address AND any of the following email addresses: Any “@bjc.org” email address or any “@saint-lukes.org” email address or “Steven.Reed@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Steven.Reed@ago.mo.gov>” or “John.Grantham@ago.mo.gov<mailto:John.Grantham@ago.mo.gov>” or “Luke.Hawley@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Luke.Hawley@ago.mo.gov>” or “Rebecca.Pinto@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Rebecca.Pinto@ago.mo.gov>” or “Donald.Re@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Donald.Re@ago.mo.gov>” or “Keith.Wade@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Keith.Wade@ago.mo.gov>” or “Eliot.Gusdorf@ago.mo.gov<mailto:Eliot.Gusdorf@ago.mo.gov>” email address or any “@ftc.org” email address

Date or Date Range to be searched:
May 1, 2023 – November 29, 2023

I will follow up with the results.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA4EA3.CE4D7730]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Ms. Liss,

Adding the keyword “merger” resulted in 0 responsive records.

Please let me know how you wish to proceed, if no response is received by February 10th, your request will be considered closed.

Best,

[cid:image001.png@01DA4EA3.CE4D7730]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.

Ms. Liss,

The results from removing all email addresses and searching all Department of Health and Senior Services emails containing the word “merger” from May 1, 2023 – November 29, 2023, is over 8800 emails. The fee associated to this revision of your request is $1,346.45, it will take approximately 44 hours to review each email.

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.

Have a great day,

[cid:image001.png@01DA505D.242E5DD0]

Christy Higgins
Sunshine Law Coordinator| Custodian of Records
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570 | Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-6955
E-mail: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov>

Sunshine Law Requests can be submitted @ https://health.mo.gov/about/sunshine-requests.php

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT
This email is from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. It contains confidential or privileged information that may be protected from disclosure by law. Unauthorized disclosure, review, copying, distribution, or use of this message or its contents by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please immediately destroy this message and notify the sender at the following email address: christy.higgins@health.mo.gov<mailto:christy.higgins@health.mo.gov> or by calling 573-751-6955.