Health Care Antitrust Trends In 2015: What Is the Government Really Up To?

The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division continue to stake out an aggressive health care antitrust agenda—and they have “the wind at their backs.” In important recent decisions, two courts of appeals have upheld FTC challenges to a hospital merger and to a hospital acquisition of a large physician group, both of which were defended as advancing goals embedded in the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court has rejected state action defenses against FTC challenges to a hospital merger involving a local governmental authority and anticompetitive activity by a state dental board controlled by industry participants. And, at a recent two-day workshop conducted by the FTC and DOJ on health care antitrust, the FTC chair and the head of the DOJ Antitrust Division reinforced the strong role antitrust should play in evolving health care marketplaces.

So where will the antitrust enforcers strike next? How should antitrust affect hospitals, health systems, physicians, and other health care market participants as they formulate and execute strategic plans in this world of changes in reimbursement, the requirements and incentives of the Affordable Care Act, and additional reform activities at the state level? Those questions will be the focus of this timely and informative webinar, where our panelists will discuss these key enforcement trends of 2014 and their likely impact on the activities of these very active agencies in 2015.