On behalf of San Francisco’s Brown & Toland Medical Group, I am writing to you to correct the record regarding a comment made in your Oct. 15 article: “New York IPA gets nod from Federal Trade Commission.” In this article, your reporter wrote: “The GRIPA and Denver-based MedSouth’s 205-physician network are the only clinical integrations to get a favorable opinion from the FTC, and there are three others—in Chicago, San Francisco and Waukesha, Wis.—being allowed to operate without having a positive FTC letter on file, Braun says.” As one of the medical groups in the nation that has worked closely with the Federal Trade Commission regarding clinical integration, we wish to point out that in addition to the advisory opinions issued to MedSouth and the Greater Rochester (N.Y.) Independent Practice Association by the FTC staff, Brown & Toland in San Francisco received a letter from the FTC staff in 2005 permitting it to proceed—on the basis of clinical integration—with joint negotiations with health plans regarding its PPO product.
Richard Angeloni
Vice president of marketing and communicationsBrown & Toland Medical GroupSan Francisco
