By Jessica Dye

Law360, New York (March 31, 2011, 6:25 PM ET) -- Federal antitrust regulators released draft guidance Thursday creating a so-called antitrust safety zone for accountable care organizations, as health care providers question how far they can go to collaborate to control prices without being deemed anti-competitive.

The guidance coincided with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' release of long-awaited guidelines for establishing ACOs, one of the centerpieces of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. ACOs are designed to provide voluntary incentives for health care providers to form collaborative arrangements to help treat individual...