Health Care Clinical Intergration and Antitrust
The Federal Trade Commission will hold a public workshop on May 29, 2008 in Washington DC regarding “collaborations between health care providers to improve the provision of health care services and reduce costs.” According to the FTC:
“Clinical integration” is used to describe certain types of collaboration among otherwise independent health care providers to improve quality and contain costs. The 1996 joint FTC/Department of Justice Statements of Antitrust Enforcement Policy in Health Care expressly recognize the potential benefits of this type of integration, and that more-extensive antitrust analysis of the competitive effects of such arrangements may be warranted where collective negotiation and contracting with payers is reasonably necessary to achieve clinical efficiencies.The workshop is part of the FTC’s ongoing efforts to study developments in health care delivery and financing that can inform its antitrust analysis, to ensure that consumers are protected from anticompetitive conduct, and that legitimate efficiency-enhancing joint ventures are not discouraged. The Commission’s staff has issued several advisory letters detailing its views on various proposals by physician networks to achieve beneficial integration of their respective practices, either through clinical integration or financial integration.
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