Healthcare reform is now in the hands of the regulators who must bring about meaningful change to improve healthcare coverage and make our system both more efficient and comprehensive. A critical element to reform envisioned by Congress is a much greater degree of integration among providers through entities known as Accountable Care Organizations (ACO’s). ACO’s will build upon successful examples of collaboration among hospitals and physicians that have effectively led to lower costs and higher quality results.
But there is a difficult and sometimes misguided barrier to collaboration: the application of the antitrust laws. The administration and antitrust agencies face the crucial challenge of establishing new guidelines in order to permit the greater level of collaboration envisioned by Congress.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Hill.
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