COLUMBIA — More than 20,000 patients will be affected by a change in coverage amid a legal battle between Boone Health and a cardiology group, Missouri Heart Center, over an alleged breach of contract, Boone Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lana Zerrer said Monday.
Missouri Heart Center is a private cardiology group, meaning it is not owned by a hospital and instead provides services to them.
Missouri Heart Center was contracted to provide doctors to care for Boone Health’s cardiology patients, Boone Health spokesperson Christian Basi said.
Basi said Missouri Heart Center’s doctors have taken care of Boone Health’s cardiology patients for more than a decade.
The heart center’s physicians specialized in almost all cardiology services, except for heart transplant patients, Zerrer said.
“We remain focused on making sure that the cardiac patients have good care and continual care as well,” Zerrer said. “We’re going to still be open for heart attacks, heart failure, rhythm disturbances, all of those things that people experience with cardiac disorders.”
All of those patients will receive a letter this week from Boone Health with information about their future coverage, Basi said.
Zerrer recommended patients get their medications refilled by their cardiologist and request their medical records from Missouri Heart before May 6, as that is the day the cardiology group and hospital’s contract ends.
“Then after May 6, if they have a primary care provider who can provide medical refills for them, that’s great,” Zerrer said. “But if they don’t, we will be providing a telephone line for them to call so that we can set them up with a Boone Health primary care provider until we get the cardiology clinic fully staffed.”
Boone Health is now looking to hire employees to build its own cardiology group.
“We are employing physicians, APPs, which are advanced practice providers, as well as all kinds of other staff, like front desk clerks, RNs, LPNs, and technicians,” Zerrer said. “Over the past week, I’ve interviewed 21 physicians and about five or six other staff.”
The hospital has not hired anyone yet, Zerrer said. She said she hopes that within 18 months, Boone Health’s cardiology group will be fully staffed at 16 physicians.
The lawsuit
Boone Health filed a lawsuit against Missouri Heart Center on Friday in Boone County Circuit Court, alleging the cardiology group is trying to open a new clinic in Columbia and therefore breaching the non-compete part of the contract.
“They have communicated that they intend to open up a competing clinic in Columbia. We believe that is a direct violation of the contract that we signed with them several years ago,” Basi said. ”So the petition that we filed with the court is to ask the court to enforce the provisions of the contract, because otherwise it’s pointless to have contracts.”
According to court documents, Missouri Heart Center said it has already partnered with Heart and Vascular Partners, a managed services organization, and Assured Healthcare Partners, a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm that specializes in investing in healthcare businesses.
Missouri Heart Center said those entities are entering the market to compete with existing health care providers, including Boone Health, according to court documents.
Boone Health believes this would breach the non-compete portion of their contract.
“Any physician who is leaving for a private equity group from Missouri Heart will be unable to practice or compete with Boone Health within 100 miles of the hospital,” Basi said. “That is what is in the contract. It also states that they can’t compete within 25 miles of a clinic.”
Missouri Heart Center posted a statement to Facebook on Saturday, where it said Boone Health has refused to engage with Missouri Heart Center and instead has sent escalating legal threats.
“For months, we have tried to meet with leadership team at Boone Health to work constructively towards a new, collaborative arrangement that would preserve access to and expand high‑quality care for our patients and for the entire community,” Missouri Heart Center wrote in the Facebook post. “Unfortunately, Boone refused to engage with us in any meaningful way. Instead, we have been met with a series of escalating legal threats, culminating in today’s filing.”
“They claim that they wanted to have conversations with us; that is incorrect,” Basi said. “We’ve asked for multiple meetings, we’ve asked for multiple data, they have absolutely refused to give it to us, or they have not replied at all. They even instructed their IT director to not talk with us, and we have that in an email.”
Basi said Boone Health has tried to contact Missouri Heart Center several times and that Missouri Heart Center instigated the termination of this partnership.
According to court documents, Boone Health claims on Nov. 7, 2025, Missouri Heart Center sent Boone Health a letter terminating their contract without cause.
Missouri Heart Center said in its post that its focus has always been patient-centered heart care, and that it will continue to work on behalf of patients to expand quality and access of care.
