MCLE SELF-STUDY

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This article is provided solely for research and archival purposes. MCLE self-study credit is no longer available. Even if you follow the instructions and submit payment you will not be granted MCLE self-study credit. Please note that low-cost MCLE is provided by the California Lawyers Association, pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 6056.

Self-Assessment Test


Answer the following questions after reading the article on hospital antitrust actions. Use the answer form provided to send the test, along with a $20 processing fee, to the State Bar. Please allow at least eight weeks for MCLE certificates and answer rationales to reach you in the mail.

1. Physicians who bring antitrust cases against hospitals for denial of privileges are rarely successful.

2. Which of the following antitrust theories are relied on by doctors alleging that they were wrongfully denied staff privileges:

3. It is easier now than it was six years ago for a doctor or other health care practitioner to satisfy the antitrust laws' interstate commerce requirement.

4. In California, which is the weakest defense against an antitrust lawsuit by a health care provider who has been denied privileges by a private hospital?

5. To succeed in a Sherman Act Section 1 claim a plaintiff must show a conspiracy or agreement between two or more separate persons or entities.

6. The members of a hospital's medical staff -- the body which initially decides who should have hospital privileges -- are legally incapable of conspiring with one another by virtue of the Copperweld Doctrine which requires two separate actors to form an antitrust conspiracy.

7. Most courts have held that a hospital is legally incapable of conspiring with its medical staff by virtue of the Copperweld doctrine which requires two separate actors to form an antitrust conspiracy.

8. If a doctor were to bring an antitrust action against members of a hospitalís medical staff after having his hospital privileges revoked, his claim might be vulnerable on causation grounds if the hospitalís board made the final decision to deny the doctor privileges.

9. Physician plaintiffs are usually able to avoid a detailed analysis of the market by pleading per se violations of the antitrust laws.

10. When a court analyzes an antitrust claim under the "rule of reason," it delves into the competitive impact of the defendant's action in the relevant product and geographic markets.

11. In order to show "antitrust injury," plaintiffs must demonstrate which of the following:

12. Physicians alleging antitrust claims against hospitals for denial of staff privileges are generally successful at limiting the relevant market to the patients served by the defendant hospital.

13. The Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 does not protect a hospital from a damages lawsuit from a non-physician health care provider.

14. If all of the requirements of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 have been met, a doctor may not sue a hospital for denying the doctor staff privileges.

15. The Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 allows successful defendants to recoup attorney fees.

16. The Health Care Quality Improvements Act of 1986 would apply to a hospital's business decision to cancel a contract with a group of radiologists.

17. Some courts have held that health care consumers and payors are more appropriate antitrust plaintiffs than doctors when a doctor is denied staff privileges.

18. In BCB Anesthesia Care v. Passavant Memorial Hosp. Assn., the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of the hospital because the plaintiff failed to allege a sufficient nexus with interstate commerce.

19. The state action exemption is only available as a defense to a physician lawsuit alleging antitrust violations from a hospital credentialing decision if the state has ultimate control in such decisions.

20. Which of the following is true about the Local Government Antitrust Act of 1984:


Certification

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