FTC seeks comments on effects of innovation on competition

As attention to antitrust enforcement in healthcare grows, the Federal Trade Commission's office for long-range policy initiatives is seeking public comment on how healthcare competition is affected by new technology and other factors.

The agency wants to hear how competition is affected by professional regulation of providers, innovations in care delivery, new technology, the measurement of quality of care and price transparency.

Competition could be affected by organized medicine's efforts to restrict scope of practice for nurse practitioners or by larger systems' greater financial ability to acquire medical technology that makes them even more dominant. On the other hand, greater public access to comparative cost and quality data could level the playing field.

The FTC held a two-day public workshop last March in Washington to gather the latest information and public comments. The agency recently extended the deadline to submit comments on healthcare competition until Friday. Comments can be sent electronically via ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/healthcareworkshop.

The comments will be publicly posted.

The FTC has not announced what it will do with the information from the workshop and public comments. But past workshops have been used to develop new FTC guidance and rules for the industry.

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