Physician Practice Consolidation Driven by Small Acquisitions, So Antitrust Agencies Have Few Tools to Intervene

Partner Cory Capps has published an article in Health Affairs documenting growing concentration in physician markets and antitrust issues raised by sequential combinations that are individually small but cumulatively significant. Dr. Capps and his co-authors, David Dranove and Christopher Ody from Northwestern University, found that 22% of physician markets were highly concentrated in 2013, according to federal merger guidelines. Furthermore, many of the acquisitions studied were below the dollar thresholds that would have required the parties to report the transaction to antitrust authorities. Read more about the findings here.