Quality improvement act gets first antitrust test.

Abstract

In an opinion issued on February 20, 1990, the Federal District Court for the Central District of California summarily dismissed the claim of Dr. George M. Austin that Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and five individual physicians conspired to suspend his hospital privileges in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The decision was based on the court's determination that the actions of the hospital and defendant physicians were immune from federal antitrust liability under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. The case is the first test of the Act in connection with a staff privileges claim under the antitrust laws and is the first affirmance of the immunity protections of the Act.