Withdrawn Guidelines for Information Sharing Raise Risks for Healthcare Data Companies

Antitrust attorney Kenneth Racowski was cited in an article published by The Capitol Forum analyzing the implications of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) decision to rescind three policy statements regarding information sharing "safety zones" for healthcare companies. The statements allowed companies to share certain competitively sensitive information to gain an advantage when negotiating costs up the supply chain but prohibited selling information based on synthesizing, analyzing or consulting that shared data. The withdrawal of these statements, combined with the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act's federal antitrust exemptions, means healthcare companies are now more vulnerable to DOJ investigations and other federal enforcement activity. Mr. Racowski cautioned that companies and trade associations need to think more carefully about how they're collecting and using customer data.

"If you are in the business of gathering data from clients and returning data, whether it's anonymized, aggregated or not, or something in between, if there is any impact on pricing from that data, it could raise competitive concerns," he said.

READ: Withdrawn Guidelines for Information Sharing Raise Risks for Healthcare Data Companies (Subscription required)