Private equity, known for making a profit on quick-turnaround investments in struggling businesses across many industries, has taken an increasingly active interest in health care in the past decade. It has invested in gastroenterology practices in recent years to tap into the revenue potential in meeting growing demand, Physician’s Weekly reports.
“We are in the Golden Age of older rectums,” one investment manager wrote in 2017.
Tired of having to manage the increasingly complicated business of running a practice and, often, lured by the sweet deals investors offer, more and more doctors have partnered with or even sold their practices to private equity funds. So investment managers now control the financial decisions for many medical offices caring for patients with digestive ailments. With profit the primary driver, patients may find they pay much more for the same — or less — care.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently lowered the age at which healthy Americans are urged to begin routine screenings for colon cancer — ensuring that most will undergo regular colonoscopies beginning at age 45. And the population is aging, meaning more people will be needing the procedure. Read more.
