In This Issue:

- Five Core antitrust Principles For mergers of health insurers By: James M. Burns.

On July 9, WellPoint and Amerigroup, two prominent health insurers, announced that they intended to merge in a deal reportedly valued at approximately $5 billion dollars. The transaction is expected to be only the first of what many predict will be a series of health insurer consolidations over the next several years, as the industry reacts to changes mandated by the Affordable Care Act. With that in mind, now is a good time to review five core antitrust principles that come into play as part of any merger of health insurers...

- In Reversing the Dismissal of a Healthcare Data Breach Class Action, the Eleventh Circuit Shows the Importance of Encryption By: Tatiana Melnik.

In early September 2012, the Eleventh Circuit decided Resnick v. AvMed, Inc., reversing, in part, a motion to dismiss, and thereby permitting a class action against AvMed, a Florida health plan provider, that arose from the theft of unencrypted information to move forward...

- RESTITUTION PAYMENTS BY PHYSICIAN HELD TO BE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE By: Ralph Levy.

In a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) the Court ruled that payments by a New Jersey physician to an insurance company to settle a civil suit for insurance fraud and to two undisclosed governmental entities in exchange for dismissal of criminal insurance fraud charges were deductible for federal income taxes as nonbusiness deductions. This means that the physician can deduct the amount paid on the physician’s individual income tax return in the year of payment, but that the deduction will be limited based on the physician’s adjustedgross income for that year...