California and New York are among the states that are heightening scrutiny of health care mergers, by giving attorneys general the ability to block deals or create new processes to review whether certain acquisitions could drive up costs or lead to the elimination of services.

If hospitals are considering mergers or deals in the next year or so, the advice is, "You might want to give serious consideration to getting it done this year," Paul Gomez, a Los Angeles-based attorney at Polsinelli, told Axios.