BRINGING COLLABORATION INTO THE MARKET PARADIGM

The market competition paradigm assumes that health plans will compete on many factors, including quality of care. Unfortunately, for many r easons health plans have not made a substantial effort to distinguish themselves an quality. The antitrust laws that are designed to protect competition allow selective collaboration among competitors far vario us purposes, including quality improvement. Within antitrust constrain ts, specific opportunities exist for competing health plans to collabo rate to improve quality. Their success will depend on purchasers' abil ity to demand such collaborative efforts as part of their overall purc hasing strategy.