Mergers promising economies of scale that will enable hospitals to operate more efficiently and at the same time court bargain-hunting consumers aren't delivering.

According to Modern Healthcare, there are plenty of pressures on such deals that can booby-trap the results and keep megamergers from delivering big payoffs. That doesn't necessarily mean that the enthusiasm for big deals has completely waned — at least not yet — although the numbers are down.

While the first quarter of 2015 saw 124 deals completed, for a total of $20,901,734,802, Q4 of 2015 saw that number sink to 105 (although the value was nearly double the deals in the first quarter, at $39,862,350,000). In the first quarter of 2016, however, there were only 74, totaling a paltry $4,972,115,000.