Health Law Advisor

In this episode of the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast: After nearly two years of combined efforts from the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the agencies jointly issued much-anticipated merger guidelines identifying the procedures and enforcement practices they will apply for evaluating potential mergers.

What might these changes mean for hospitals, health systems, and other stakeholders in the health care industry?

On this episode, Epstein Becker Green attorneys Trish Wagner, John Steren, Jeremy Morris, and Dan Fahey discuss some of the key changes in the finalized antitrust merger guidelines and what these guidelines mean for the agencies' approach to enforcement.

Due diligence is a standard phase of any corporate transaction, whether structured as an asset or stock sale or joint venture, and sellers are often surprised, and even overwhelmed, by the comprehensiveness of the diligence investigation.  Preparing prior to soliciting bids or looking for a buyer can ease the burden of diligence and allow the seller to focus on other areas of the transaction, such as negotiating important terms and documents.

New York recently enacted new legislation that will amend Article 45-A of the New York Public Health Law, entitled “Disclosure of Material Transactions”.  Although the legislation, as enacted, contains no description of legislative intent, the budget bill language originally proposed referenced concerns with the “proliferation of large physician practices being managed by entities that are investor-backed” (e.g., private equity platforms) and which are otherwise unregulated by the state outside of the licensure of the individual practitioners.

Effective August 1, 2023, the new legislation requires thirty (30) days advance notice to the New York State Department of Health (“Department”) of any “material transactions” involving “health care entities” that provide administrative or management services for physician practices, provider-sponsored organizations, health insurance plans, “or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan providing health care services. . . .”   

In this episode of the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast:  Like the diversity of the industry itself, merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in health care take many forms, varying in size and complexity.

While buyers tend to focus on several things as part of those transactions, securing key employees post-closing is an important but sometimes overlooked issue.

What are some important factors to consider when entering a transaction in a human capital-intensive industry like health care?

In this episode of the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast:  The Federal Reserve’s steady increase of interest rates and the slowed economic growth have increased fiscal pressure on health care providers, leaving many to look for ways to bridge budget shortfalls through injections of capital, asset sales, or other strategic transactions. 

What options are there for providers moving forward?

Did you know that your zip code is a better predictor of your health than your genetic code? Public health experts – and your health insurance provider – have long known that the air you breath, the education you receive, your net worth, and even the music that you listen to are strong indicators of your overall health – and the possibility that you might need expensive medical procedures in the future. By some measures, up to 50% of your overall health is determined by social, economic, and environmental factors. As the movement to value-based payment continues in health care, there ...

Tuesday’s decision by Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia categorically approving the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, without imposing any conditions or limitations and rejecting granting a stay for appeal purposes, will, unless blocked if there is an appeal, open the way for a series of pending vertical merger deals.

A “vertical merger” is a merger of two companies that do not compete and that are at different levels of the product or service-provision process. Such mergers do not reduce the number of competitors in a given market and, by ...

The pace of health care transactions is robust, purchase price multiples are increasing, and many health care businesses are taking advantage of a sellers’ market.  Recently, our clients have increasingly turned to representation and warranty (“R&W”) insurance, finding a market more amenable to the nuances of health care deals than in the past. In the right deal, R&W insurance can limit risk to both seller and buyer and increase value to a seller by allowing for “walk-away” or “naked” deals.  R&W insurance may also be used as a tool by a buyer to increase the ...

There has been a growing trend of strategic joint ventures throughout the healthcare industry with the goal of enhancing expertise, accessing financial resources, gaining efficiencies, and improving performance in the changing environment. This includes, for example, hospital-hospital joint ventures, hospital-payor joint ventures, and hospital joint ventures with various ancillary providers (e.g., ambulatory surgery, imaging, home health, physical therapy, behavioral health, etc.). Extra precautions need to be taken in joint ventures between tax-exempt entities ...