The real impact of private equity on health care

While the rest of us were learning to make sourdough during the pandemic, private-equity firms were refining a skill: turning profits by buying out health care providers. The steady demand for certain health care facilities, like nursing homes, caught investors attention. The amount spent on health care facility buyouts in 2021 and 2022 globally was roughly 60% higher than in the previous two years. In most countries where private equity has a foothold in health care, big takeovers are only expected to continue.

Earlier his month, a team at Columbia University and the University of Chicago published the first large-scale study looking at private equity takeovers across specialities, countries, and more. “Our most unequivocal evidence is that private equity is associated with increased costs,” says Alexander Borsa, a Ph.D. candidate in sociomedical sciences at Columbia University and a lead author on the study. While the researchers found a less definitive effect on the quality of care after private equity buyout, the care changes they did find “skewed a little more toward mixed or harmful,” particularly in facilities like nursing homes, where patients are especially vulnerable to add-on fees for everyday services.

The solution, the authors say, has to start with increased transparency. And while I wait for the government to take care of that, I’m off to Google who owns all my doctors’ offices.

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