The Trustee's Guide to Understanding Healthcare Antitrust Law Issues
Jonathan P.Tomes
Healthcare Financial Management Association, Westchester, IL
1992, 74 pp., $24.95 (paperback)
Today's trustees must be aware of the rules and regulations that affect the operations for which they are directly and indirectly responsible. Jonathan P. Tomes's monograph on healthcare antitrust laws is a helpful resource for trustees of hospitals and other healthcare organizations.
Tomes's work can be useful for attorneys or others who wish to review or become acquainted in some detail with antitrust law. However, it may be too detailed for someone who wants only a broad overview of antitrust.
The opening chapter briefly explores why antitrust has become an important issue for healthcare providers interested in potential mergers, acquisitions, or affiliations. Chapter 2 covers the history and background of antitrust law, reviewing important federal and state legislation in this area.
The rest of the book addresses various aspects of antitrust law as it affects healthcare organizations, including:
- Antitrust law and the healthcare industry
- Mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations
- Other arrangements among healthcare providers
- Access to facilities and organizations
- Pricing of healthcare goods
- Sanctions for antitrust violations
Although Tomes touches on state antitrust statutes, his expertise is in federal antitrust statutory and case law, a topic on which the work is helpful. But trustees should also make themselves aware of applicable laws enacted in states where their corporation does business.
The principles of federal antitrust law explained in the book will probably continue to apply should federal healthcare reform be enacted. However, for product market analyses, the full range of services offered by or through accountable health plans (e.g., integrated delivery networks, health maintenance organizations) might become the relevant product market rather than the product market for hospital services alone.
Hospital trustees in particular must be aware of how important antitrust law is for their organizations. After all, when representatives of the Department of Justice come knocking on the door to perform an antitrust investigation, they will not accept the excuse that trustees are unfamiliar with applicable antitrust laws and so failed to at least raise a red flag or two when their institution became involved in a questionable transaction.
Again, today's trustees must be more familiar than ever with the laws that govern the operations of the institutions they guide. Publications like this one can help in this endeavor.
Vance C. Parkhurst
Corporate Director of Legal Services
OSF Healthcare System
Peoria, IL
Copyright © 1993 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.