The Guardian - Private equity investment firms have been slammed for their role in the declining healthcare quality and access, as well as the rising costs for patients, in a recently released report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).Market consolidation and private equity investment can have deadly consequences in the healthcare industry, says the report, which dropped mere days before Donald Trump retook the Oval Office.
Private equity investment in nursing homes led to an 11% increase in patient deaths, according to one study cited in the report, while another study cited illuminated that insufficient competition in the healthcare market increases the death rate for heart attack patients.
These problems stemmed in part from “aggressive staļ¬ng cuts and hiring inadequately credentialed staff”.
One commenter in the report, a physician, said that after her practice was acquired by private equity, she “was forced to see 45 patients daily with 1 medical assistant. This was unsafe … I was routinely told by patients they called with problems and never heard back … I knew that I was going to be the one to go down when something bad happened and I left because I refused to take that fall.”
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