ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- If the Greater Rochester Independent Practice Association has its way, you may soon find yourself negotiating payment rates with physicians’ groups.

The Federal Trade Commission staff will not recommend to FTC commissioners any challenge to a plan by GRIPA to negotiate contracts, including price terms, with payers on behalf of association members, according to a Sept. 17 letter from the FTC Bureau of Competition, reports BNA’s Health Care Daily Report.

GRIPA has explicitly admitted that one objective of its plan is to contract at higher fee levels for the services of its physician members. “Here, however, GRIPA’s higher fee levels are anticipated as part of a program that seeks, and through the participants’ integration appears to have significant potential to achieve, greater overall efficiency and improved quality in the provision of medical care to covered persons,” the FTC letter said.

You can read the entire FTC letter at http://www.ftc.gov/bc/adops/gripa.pdf.