Charting a Path Forward in 2026: Q4 Healthcare Antitrust Report
In this video, Healthcare Transactions attorney John Saran reviews the key enforcement actions and policy developments that shaped the industry in 2025 and offers practical insights for navigating these changes in 2026. Mr. Saran examines the various legislative efforts to regulate healthcare consolidation throughout the country. He also anticipates a new round of legislation in 2026, which will likely prompt federal and state governments to scrutinize not only healthcare consolidation, but also private equity and insurance rollups.
Read Holland & Knight's full Year-End Healthcare Antitrust Report here.
John Saran: So one thing that I've been tracking in the last, like, two or three years has been recent federal and state scrutiny of healthcare consolidation. It's been a bipartisan issue. There's been some focus on certain stakeholders in the healthcare industry. In 2025, we saw a deluge of state legislation that was attempting to regulate healthcare consolidation. And that came in different forms: It was transaction reporting, it was ownership disclosures, noncompete restrictions and a renewed look at the corporate practice of medicine. And so what we saw were 30 bills that were proposed across over a dozen states. Looking ahead to next year, though, we fully expect a new round of legislation. We expect the federal government and states to not only look at healthcare consolidation as a broader item, but also more specifically, again, private equity and now even insurance rollups of healthcare providers.