Federal Courts and Enforcers Diagnose Physician Practice Associations with Risk of Conspiracy Liability: Degree of Integration is Crucial to Challenges to Medical Network Price Agreements

Thanks to a recent federal district court decision, physicians and medical staff have more reason to think twice about price and other arrangements adopted by the practice associations and clinics to which they belong. Last Spring, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California held that a hospital and a physicians practice association, and a hospital and the physicians that provide services to it under contract, may be sufficiently distinct