Health Law Advisor

Distressed businesses are often compared to melting ice cubes or an aircraft in rapid descent. The goal for a distressed business is to get to a transaction before the ice cube melts or the aircraft and ground meet at an unsurvivable speed. New state laws modeled after the federal Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act now require, or will soon require, parties to provide notice of certain health care transactions to state regulators creating additional hurdles for distressed healthcare businesses.

Florida has been at the forefront of some very interesting healthcare M&A activity in the past year, including an influx of private equity and consistent growth in Hospital and Health Plan vertical integration.  Unless subject to antitrust filing requirements, these high profile transactions are typically carried out under veils of confidentiality and announced upon completion.  However, Florida M&A is not insulated from recent Florida House health reform initiatives.  If the Florida House gets its way, the pace of healthcare transactions in Florida may hit a speed bump in the form ...