Disclosure: Antitrust Issues

This project involves a survey of charges and fees among pediatricians in Tennessee. The FTC's health care antitrust regulations prohibit attempts to restrain trade, specifically by price-fixing. However, the FTC has issued open-letter advisory opinions to both a physician group and a professional medical practice managers' association that such surveys are not necessarily collusive if measures to protect competition are preserved.

To that end, all such physician charge and fee surveys undertaken by this project shall:

• Deidentify all physicians/physician groups participating
• Publish charge and fee data only in the aggregate
• Not publish any charge or fee data responses with fewer than five (5) respondents
• Allow a minimum of three (3) months to elapse before aggregate data is released to the public

The goal of this project is to improve pediatrician participation in TennCare, with pro-competitive results.