Abstract: | With the growing wave of acquisitions of practices by hospitals, antitrust regulators are putting the deals under harsh scrutiny to see if they're just a cover for raising prices rather than coordinating care and improving quality. "If there's an issue, I want to know about it now," says St. Luke's President and CEO Dr. David Pate, whose hospital met such a roadblock. "Let's just see if there are issues. We don't believe that there are." |