Private equity healthcare ownership draws new scrutiny

Editor's Note

Over the last 10 years, private equity has taken over many of the nation’s health care facilities—from hospitals to nursing homes to physician practices—spending $1 trillion and instituting changes designed to rapidly increase profits, NBC News reported April 9.

Studies have found that these takeovers can have serious consequences for patients, the article notes. One study found that nursing home residents in facilities owned by private equity had 10% higher death rates. Private-equity owned hospitals have also been found to have higher rates of patient falls and infections. Patient readmissions are higher at these hospitals, too. Amid increasing alarming reports and with the help of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, legislators are beginning to scrutinize these buyouts and hold private equity firms accountable. 

According to NBC, 40% of US emergency departments are run by staffing companies owned by private equity firms. State-based rankings by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project show that New Mexico, Florida, Rhode Island and West Virginia are among the states with the highest number of health care operations run by private equity.  

The trend is impacting not only healthcare facilities but also specialties, particularly anesthesia practices, according to an April 16 report in Becker’s ASC Review. According to a 2020 study, 33% of anesthesiologists were acquired by private equity physician practice buyouts. North American Partners in Anesthesia, the largest anesthesia staffing company in the U.S. with 6,000 clinicians at 500 facilities, is private-equity owned, that article notes.