Private equity firms investing in healthcare often reduce market competition and create local monopolies through the practice of “roll-ups” or “buying up a bunch of practices that compete with each other,” Garden-Moneheit explained, adding: “When you reduce competition, that creates space to raise prices and cut wages.” Private equity firms that create hospital chains through roll-ups of independent hospitals will often credit themselves with “rescuing” or “saving” hospitals.
US health department condemns private equity firms for role in declining healthcare access Government report says private equity investment in nursing homes led to 11% increase in patient deaths.
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.
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).
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.
