Medical staff privileges and the antitrust laws: does the Intracorporate Conspiracy Doctrine apply?

Abstract

The occasional imposition of antitrust liability on medical staff members for actions involving peer review is not a sufficient reason to abandon medical staff participation in the peer review process. This article reviews some of the case law in which the applicability of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine to medical staff peer review activity has been decided and explains why appropriate medical staff involvement in such activity does not raise the risk of antitrust liability.