In a blow to the Biden Administration’s goal to heighten enforcement of labor-related competitor agreements, a Maine jury on Wednesday acquitted four home-health operators who were accused of conspiring to fix the wages of home-health workers in the Spring of 2020. The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) had alleged that the operators violated Section 1 … Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently withdrew three policy statements regarding conduct in the healthcare sector. The statements withdrawn are the Department of Justice and FTC Antitrust Enforcement Policy Statements in the Health Care Area (dated September 1993); the Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy in Health Care (dated August 1996); and the Statement of … Continue Reading
On Monday, September 19, 2022, D.C. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols rejected the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) request to block UnitedHealth’s $13.8 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare. UnitedHealth is the largest health insurer in the United States, while Change Healthcare is a leading data clearinghouse for insurance claims. The DOJ initially filed suit to … Continue Reading
On February 24, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed suit to block UnitedHealth’s proposed acquisition of Change Healthcare. UnitedHealth owns the largest health insurer in the U.S., while Change Healthcare is a data company whose software is the largest processor of health insurance claims in the U.S. The DOJ alleges that the acquisition, … Continue Reading
The Department of Justice kicked off 2021 with its first publicly filed, two-count indictment against Surgical Care Affiliates, LLC (SCA) and successor entity Scai Holdings, LLC, both accused of criminal antitrust violations for agreeing with other healthcare companies not to solicit each other’s senior-level employees. The charges are the first to come out of an … Continue Reading
Recent years have seen significant vertical integration in the healthcare space, whether megamergers such as CVS-Aetna and Cigna-Express Scripts, or the numerous hospital and health system acquisitions of physician groups and other non-hospital healthcare providers. These vertical mergers—combining assets that are used at different levels of the supply chain—have largely escaped significant antitrust scrutiny since … Continue Reading
On October 20, 2011, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission jointly issued their “Final Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy Regarding Accountable Care Organizations Participating in the Medical Shared Savings Program.” The policy statement, which largely mirrors the agencies’ proposed policy statement issued on April 19, 2011, outlines how the agencies will enforce U.S. … Continue Reading
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice (the “Agencies”) recently released Proposed Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy Regarding ACOs, which contains several points of interest: Rule of Reason Treatment. The Agencies will provide rule of reason treatment to an ACO if, in the commercial market, the ACO uses the same governance and leadership structure and … Continue Reading
