Beard Audio Conferences

Hospital Mergers and Antitrust Compliance

Latest Rules, Judgments, and Enforcement Targets

Location: Your office or conference room (no need to travel!)

Date : Audio CD Available

Time(s):

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Hosted By : The Beard Group Law and Business Publishers and Nightingale's Healthcare News

This conference will include:

Clarify what types of deals and clinical affiliations are targets of today's federal enforcement actions.

With this Audio CD, recorded in early September 2007, you will examine why antitrust concerns remain very relevant to the healthcare industry.

You'll learn:

- Government enforcement. The Federal antitrust enforcement agencies continue to be vigilant in enforcing the antitrust laws in the health care sector. Government actions can be costly, disruptive to operations and may lead to more costly and disruptive remedies if a violation is proven, or the charges are settled.

- Private Actions. Exclusionary or predatory conduct can lead to costly and risky private antitrust litigation. The extremely high cost of antitrust litigation was specifically noted in the recently decided case, Bell Atlantic Corporation v. Twombly, in which the Supreme Court raised the bar on pleading lawsuits based on antitrust conspiracies. They can be especially risky in healthcare where contracting arrangements can be complicated and may result in unforeseen anticompetitive consequences or may be misconstrued by juries. Because the successful private antitrust plaintiff is entitled to receive three times its actual damages, health care firms need to know the antitrust risks associated with their conduct. On the other side of the coin, firms injured by anticompetitive conduct have a powerful remedy to restore lawful competition and recover from anticompetitive harm.

- Government challenges to physician joint contracting arrangement. Last year, the FTC and Advocate Health Partners (AHP) settled charges alleging that certain of AHPs physician joint contracting arrangements violated the antitrust laws. The FTC, however, did not challenge AHPs qualified clinically-integrated joint arrangement. The antitrust enforcement agencies have consistently and successfully challenged illegal joint contracting arrangements that purported to have financial integration, but the agencies seem less willing to condemn a clinically integrated arrangement. You will review the agencies views on clinical integration for insights into the viability of that joint contracting arrangement.

- Government challenges to hospital mergers. Hospital merger activity has diminished since the 1990s, but not as much as governmental merger enforcement has. After a decade of failed challenges to hospital mergers, the government successfully (so far) sought to break up the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare system in the Chicago area. At the ABA Antitrust Spring 2007 Meeting, an FTC official indicated that the agency would not hestitate challenge a hospital merger in the appropriate circumstances. The Evanston Northwestern Healthcare case may have breathed new life into the agencies view of hospital competition, but they have not yet thereafter challenged a hospital merger.

- Peacehealth and the bundled discount question. In McKenzie-Willamette Hospital v. Peachhealth, a jury found for the plaintiff, a small community hospital, on its attempted monopolization and discriminatory pricing claim and awarded the plaintiff $5.4 million on each. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sought amicus curiae (friends of the court) briefs on the question of whether a plaintiff must prove that the defendants bundled discounts to its customers resulted in prices that were below an appropriate measure of the defendants costs. What the amici say may have an important impact on how providers can price their services to payers.

- Specialty hospitals and clinics. General acute-care hospitals provide a full range of services, some more profitable than others, while specialty hospitals and clinics may cherry pick patients in need of more profitable procedures. This charge, among other things, has garnered those providers hostility from the general acute-care hospitals. Using this hostility to color conduct with the gloss of exclusionary intent, specialty hospitals and clinics have sued for violations of the antitrust laws. The instructor will review some recent cases and discuss the alleged exclusionary practices.

Speaker(s):

Steven S. Shonder
Drinker Biddle

Steven S. Shonder has over 10 years of experience representing clients in litigated healthcare antitrust matters and advising healthcare clients on antitrust issues. Since the beginning of his career, Steve has been involved in major healthcare antitrust actions, including defending hospitals and hospital networks against charges of monopolization, attempted monopolization and unreasonable restraints of trade in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and West Virginia.

Steve has also assisted in the prosecution of monopolization, exclusive dealing, and unreasonable restraint of trade cases involving pharmaceuticals and medical devices. In addition, he has analyzed and counseled clients on mergers of healthcare providers and healthcare financing companies. He is a co-author of A Dose of Bad Medicine, published in the Aspen Journal of Health Care Finance, Vol. 32, No. 4, Summer 2006, an article focusing on the Federal Trade Commissions attack on the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare merger. He is also a contributor to the American Bar Associations Antitrust Law Developments series and annual supplements.

Steve was named one of 12 Outstanding Healthcare Antitrust Lawyers2006 in the December 2006 issue of Nightingales Healthcare News, a bi-monthly newsletter for professionals serving the healthcare industry, healthcare executives and others.

Hospital Mergers and Antitrust Compliance


Conference Audio CD + Written Materials	US$	35.00	add to cart

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