A look at the lure to hospital-based physician groups of being bought by staffing firms.
Part of the attraction is the buyers may have far more time and skill to negotiate contracts with insurers and help physicians improve their business practices.
More and more hospital physician groups are being intensely pressured by price pressures from insurers, the federal push to bundle services — in part to cut pay to physicians and hospitals – new regulations and barriers to expanding.
Jeff Swearingen, co-founder and managing director of Edgemont Capital Partners, told Modern Healthcare that the healthcare investment-banking firm has counted 62 acquisitions of hospital physician practices this year, after a similarly active 2014. And the ample institutional capital available for purchases is coinciding with a growing desire among physicians to belong to bigger groups.”
More and more physicians, seeing relentless consolidation among insurers and hospitals, see joining bigger organizations as the the most effective — and perhaps the only — way to counter price pressures against them.
