As pointed out in our blog of October 16th, 2014 the State of Connecticut is putting in place a review process for the merger of or acquisition of physician practices.

The State of New York has now proposed regulations to be followed by the New York Commissioner of Health, when issuing certificates for accountable care organizations.  The proposed regulations will immunize the accountable care organization from federal antitrust law liability under the state action doctrine and also protect them from the State of New York antitrust laws.

In an attempt to establish active state oversight, the proposed regulations are requiring among other things that (1) the Commissioner consider the potential benefits of the ACO, (2) the market conditions in the ACO’s primary service area, (3) the potential disadvantages of the ACO’s collaborative activities, (4) for the availability of less competitive restrictive arrangements and (5) the extent to which such state supervision is likely to mitigate any disadvantages.

This is now the second Northeast/Midatlantic state to actively propose state review and oversight of activities, that are otherwise exempt from pre-approvals under the federal Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.  While neither of these approaches have been enacted by the New Jersey State Legislature or proposed by New Jersey administrative agencies, the above is just an indication of the tenor of what is occurring in the health care industry, particularly now as it involves physicians and physician practices.