by Hillary Webber

Last week, Sharis Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, spoke at the World Annual Leadership Summit on Mergers and Acquisitions in Health Care, where she affirmed that protection of competition in the health care industry is a top priority of the Division.  Pozen highlighted the Division’s recent enforcement activities in insurance and provider markets, including challenges to insurance company mergers and contracting practices used by dominant insurers or providers such as Most Favored Nation (MFN) provisions and exclusivity agreements. 

Of note, Pozen remarked that the Division undertook a comprehensive evaluation of health insurance markets, the results of which have caused the Division to regard with increasing skepticism the ability of new entry to constrain a merged health insurance firm.  Pozen explained that new entrants face obstacles because they need provider discounts to attract enrollees but have difficulty obtaining them without a large number of enrollees.  Pozen stated that the Division will focus more attention on entry analysis to protect markets from harmful consolidation, especially markets dominated by one or two plans.  Regarding provider markets, Pozen described the Division as "on the lookout for agreements or arrangements purported to improve quality but where the real goal is simply to raise prices."  This is especially relevant given the Affordable Care Act’s encouragement of provider collaboration in the form of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

Pozen’s remarks are available at: https://www.justice.gov/atr/public/speeches/281236.pdf.

Pozen’s comments highlight the need for health care companies considering collaborative arrangements with competitors or contracting arrangements such as MFNs or exclusivity agreements to consult counsel and articulate a clear pro-competitive basis for such conduct.