Few industries in the United States have received more attention from the popular press and antitrust authorities than health care. Whether in response to business or legislative and regulatory pressures, health care companies have increasingly looked to transactions as a means to achieve cost savings, quality improvement, and population health management. At the same time, the antitrust agencies have promised robust enforcement in health care markets. The collision of these forces led to many significant legal developments in recent years, and also made producing an up-to-date treatment of these issues challenging.

The revised and updated Health Care Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook, Second Edition provides guidance regarding how courts and the U.S. antitrust agencies analyze and review mergers in the health care industry. This handbook addresses the issues that antitrust practitioners and their clients face in planning, executing, and litigating transactions in the health care field. Specifically, this handbook details antitrust agency policy and case law with respect to hospital, physician practice, and health plan transactions.