Court Sides With Hospital in Antitrust Dispute With Oncologists

A federal judge refused to halt a Philadelphia area hospital’s decision to terminate the privileges of an independent oncology group, holding that the doctors’ antitrust claims aren’t likely to succeed.

Judge Kai Scott of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Monday denied Alliance Cancer Specialists PC’s motion for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals Inc. from terminating the oncology and hematology medical privileges of the practice’s five oncologists. The judge also said the provider’s patients don’t face immediate irreparable harm.

The Federal Trade Commission and Congress have both probed ...