Earlier this week my colleagues, Bruce Sokler and Farrah Short published an alert detailing the FTC's creative solution to permit a presumptively anticompetitive merger for a financially failing medical practice. The FTC entered into a proposed settlement with two Minnesota health care providers, allowing them to proceed with a planned merger that, according to the agency, combines "the two largest providers of adult primary care, pediatric, and OB/GYN services in the St. Cloud area." The FTC's willingness to accept the proposed settlement permitting was premised on (1) the fact that one of the medical groups "is a financially failing physician practice" and (2) "concerns regarding disruptions to patient care and possible physician shortages."
The full alert on the FTC's envelope-pressing consent solution can be found here.
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