Check out the following Health Care Alert provided by our corporate partner, Haynes and Boone, LLP:

FTC Orders Texas Doctors’ Group to Cease Joint Price Negotiations with Insurers

Southwest Health Alliance (“Southwest”), an independent practice association with approximately 900 member-physicians, has agreed to a proposed order recently entered by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) settling charges that it engaged in anticompetitive conduct in its dealings with insurers and other payors for the provision of physician services (collectively, “insurers” or “payors”).

In its complaint, the FTC alleged that since at least 2000, Southwest has restrained trade by fixing the prices its members would charge insurers, and has collectively negotiated the terms and conditions governing dealings with insurers. As a result of Southwest’s conduct, consumers and businesses had to pay higher prices for medical care.

The collective approach that Southwest employed is not barred, per se. Indeed, collective price negotiation and other agreements may be justified if the members of the independent practice association are financially or clinically integrated. However, determining whether collective action is justified requires a fact-intensive examination that health care providers would be wise to undertake before problems arise. This case gives providers a helpful guide to the FTC’s analysis of this issue.

To read the full alert, please visit the Publications section of our website.