On May 9, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the formation of a new Task Force on Health Care Monopolies and Collusion. According to a DOJ press release, the task force will focus on investigation and enforcement of federal antitrust laws, with the DOJ press release noting specific areas of concern, such as “competition concerns shared by patients, health care professionals, businesses and entrepreneurs” and issues regarding payer-provider consolidation, serial acquisitions, labor and quality of care, medical billing, health care IT services, access to and misuse of health care data and more.”
This formation of this task force is a continuation of other recent efforts by the Biden Administration to investigate and combat anti-competitive and monopolistic practices in the healthcare industry. DOJ noted that the task force would welcome input and information from the public regarding potential violations of law, including “from practitioners, patients, researchers, business owners and others who have direct insight into competition concerns in the health care industry.”