Patients for Profit: How Private Equity Hijacked Health Care

<div> <div> <div><span></span><img width="3840" alt="An out-of-focus image of several ambulances with their lights on." src="https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/GettyImage…; <p>How Private Equity Hijacked Health Care</p> <div>
<p>Private equity investors are rapidly scooping up thousands of health care businesses, taking over emergency rooms or entire hospitals, and becoming major players in physician practices and patient care, from cradle to grave. But these acquisitions are often invisible to federal regulators. And their profit motives raise concerns about rising prices and the quality of treatment.</p>
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</div></div> <blockquote><p>I don’t like using hyperbole, but as a provider I have never seen anything like this.</p><cite>Dr. Jonathan Guerra-Rodríguez, ICU nurse and internist</cite></blockquote> <div><span></span><img width="3840" alt="A wide shot shows Audrain Community Hospital." src="https://preprod.kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Au…; <div>
<p><strong>When Private Equity Comes for Rural Hospitals</strong></p> <p>MEXICO, Mo. — When the new corporate owners of two rural hospitals suddenly announced they would stop admitting patients one Friday in March, Kayla Schudel, a nurse, stood resolute in the nearly empty lobby of Audrain Community Hospital: “You’ll be seen; the ER is open.”</p> <p>The hospital — with 40 beds and five clinics — typically saw 24 to 50 emergency room cases a day, treating patients from the surrounding 1,000-plus acre farms and tiny no-stoplight towns, she said. She wouldn’t abandon them.</p> <p>A week later Noble Health had the final word: It locked the doors.</p> <div>
<div><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/private-equity-rural-hospitals-c… the first “Buy and Bust” story</a></div>
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</div></div> <div> </div> <blockquote><p>Their model is to deliver short-term financial goals and in order to do that you have to cut corners.</p><cite>Mary Inman, attorney</cite></blockquote> <div> <div>
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<p>KFF Health News analyzed 600 deals by 25 firms PitchBook identified as the top private equity investors in health care. Click below to view the acquisitions and top investors across the country.</p> </div> <div>
<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mOkn9LNz3r3UnPnR3xDLtZ_k1GPaVvX… width="1096" src="https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/PE-Acquisi…; alt=""></a>
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<div> <p>Fred SchulteSarah Jane TribbleRae Ellen BichellBlake FarmerMarkian HawrylukEmmarie HuettemanVictoria KnightHarris MeyerEmily PisacretaRachana PradhanRenuka RayasamLauren SausserChristine SpolarSarah VarneyLauren Weber</p><p>Bernard J. Wolfson</p></div></div></div></div></div>