Your doctor may be bought out by a private corporation

Wolf Street - Healthcare, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of US GDP, “is really the growth opportunity,” Tom Banning, CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, told The Texas Tribune:

“The forces are aligned to force consolidation, and frankly, how those independent doctors are able to compete against well-heeled, deep-pocketed systems or networks is going to be a problem,” Banning said. “To me the question becomes, if a for-profit, publicly traded or privately held venture-capital fund owns these doctors, what’s their fiduciary duty to the patients?”

The Texas Tribune: “Sensing a new vein of potential profits to be mined in the multibillion-dollar health care industry, a small but growing number of private equity firms is seeking to buy into primary care practices, interviews with doctors and financial analysts suggest.”


Consolidation in the healthcare sector is running rampant, from the M&A activity among the largest health insurers, such as Aetna’s acquisition of Humana, to hospital systems buying physician practices.


A report by Bain and Company found that last year, healthcare buyouts by [private equity] firms – not corporate M&A – in North America soared nearly 60% year-over-year, to a new record of $15.6 billion, across 80 mostly smaller deals, with only two deals above $1 billion.