The specialty has seen a surge in such deals in recent years. One recent American College of Radiology survey found that half of its members had been impacted by M&A activity in the past three years, while 40% expected to be in the future, reports Radiology Business.
Many of these marriages may fail, but two experts have advice to help providers avoid some of the most common mistakes.
“Mergers and acquisitions can work, but only if everyone involved truly knows what they are doing and commits to making it work,” Lindsey Well and Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD, both with the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Department of Radiology, wrote this week.
The pitfalls:
- Neglecting to envision how the two organizations will come together and what the combined entity will look like.
- Overstating the potential benefits of consolidation; oftentimes, those in charge of evaluating these partnerships are not the ones who will eventually have to make the merger work.
- Ignoring how the other organization stands to benefit from being acquired.
- Failing to “truly consolidate” by allowing staffs to continue competing with one another and ignoring necessary steps to unify culture.
- Disregarding the potential consequences of an unsuccessful merger, which can include layoffs, increased employee stress, and lost knowledge in the organization.
- Letting the scope of an M&A deal impact its success. Large organizations tend to be more bureaucratic, the authors noted, and may seek to impose “one-size-fits-all” arrangements on diverse organizations while overlooking important local considerations. Read more.
