Health Systems and Private Equity: Adversaries Turned Allies

Health care partner Isaac Willett and associates Jamie Levin, Carly Helman and Jacob Hauschild coauthored an article for the American Health Law Association (AHLA) on how health care-focused private equity (PE) firms have been devoting capital to physician practice roll-ups across numerous medical specialties.

The authors explain that PE firms have been actively investing in health care companies for decades, including the rise and fall of the PE-sponsored physician practice management (PPM) companies of the 1990s. They add that while some of those PPMs are alive and well today, many went bankrupt by the early 2000s.

The authors also note that these activities have driven significant consolidation within certain medical specialties and have largely positioned PE firms as competitors to hospitals and health systems that are finding it increasingly difficult to achieve optimal levels of physician alignment.

The full article is available for AHLA members.