Category Archives: Private Equity

Corporate Takeover Has Not Been Good for Healthcare

Posted on by • Posted in Health Insurance Industry, Healthcare Sector, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Pharmaceutical Industry, Private Equity, Profit Margin, Profit Motive, Value-Based Healthcare • Leave a comment

Click to access 4sightHealth.Ken-Terry-PE-Healthcare-8.13.24-1.pdf

Four decades ago, Paul Starr noted in his landmark history of U.S. healthcare, “The Social Transformation of American Medicine,” that the industry had taken a decisive turn toward corporate ownership. “Medical care in America now appears to be in the early stages of a major transformation in its institutional structure,” he wrote. “Corporations have begun to integrate a hitherto decentralized hospital system, enter a variety of other health care businesses, and consolidate ownership and control in what may eventually become an industry dominated by huge healthcare conglomerates.”

Forty years later, Starr’s prediction has come true. The vast majority of hospitals (other than critical access facilities) are now part of health systems, and some of those belong to giant for-profit or not-for-profit corporations. Nearly 80% of physicians are now employed by hospitals or private companies, including health insurers like United Healthcare. Most community pharmacies have been displaced by enormous chains like CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. Nursing home chains have taken over two-thirds of skilled nursing facilities. A handful of huge firms dominate health insurance, and a dozen drug manufacturers produce and set the prices of the most common prescription medicines.

Private equity (PE) investors focus like a laser beam on generating profits. There can be an amoral quality to PE investing, seeking returns whether or not they create value for customers in the marketplace.

Steward Healthcare, a large hospital chain initially created with PE investment has become, whether fair or not, a poster child for what can go wrong with private investment in healthcare. Steward went bankrupt after aggressively expanding into new markets beyond Massachusetts with funding generated from sales-leaseback arrangements with Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

But many of the PE firms that now own over 200 acute care hospitals take a similar approach. According to a recent study of PE-owned hospitals, two years after they were purchased, 61% of them had reduced capital assets, compared to 15.5% of control hospitals. Assets decreased by a mean of 15% for acquired hospitals and increased by 9.2% for controls during that period.

Corporate Goals Vs. Value-Based Care
The consolidation of the industry by large corporate entities has received a fair amount of media attention. What has been less noticed is the incompatibility between corporate goals and value-based care. One reason for this is that many big healthcare systems pretend to be interested in population health management. For example, they may operate accountable care organizations (ACOs) that seek to improve the quality of care and reduce costs through better prevention and care coordination. They may also try to reduce readmissions, which helps them avoid Medicare penalties.

Don’t be fooled. There are exceptions — including the few integrated systems like Kaiser and Geisinger that take financial responsibility for care — but most healthcare systems have no intention of turning their business model upside down by using population health management to decrease admissions and empty their beds. When for-profit chains deliver reports to stock analysts, or not-for-profits seek to sell bonds, the metric they most often use to show their financial health is their occupancy rate, not their success in value-based care.

Meanwhile, the healthcare behemoths are continuing to grow larger. While the Department of Justice has ramped up its antitrust activity under the Biden Administration and has discouraged some mergers, this has had relatively little impact on healthcare consolidation. Academic medical centers are acquiring more community hospitals as referral sources, and some large systems like Risant Health, a nonprofit entity created by Kaiser Permanente, are doing interstate deals that help them escape the oversight of state laws.

Physicians have been largely a football in the matches between giant healthcare systems and equally massive insurers. Many independent practices have been forced to sell out to hospitals because Medicare pays hospital outpatient departments more than independent practices for the same services. (That this remains the case nearly 10 years after Congress passed its first “site-neutral” payment law is a testament to the power of regulatory capture.) While there are some sizable independent groups and physician-led ACOs, it is difficult for doctors to determine their own destinies today. And, because of how their corporate overlords affect the practice of medicine, many employed physicians are unhappy with their working conditions and its impact on patients. We’re even starting to see the beginnings of unionization in some systems.

Saving Primary Care
A variety of reforms have been tried to shore up primary care, the cornerstone of value-based care. For example, some primary-care-driven ACOs with value-based contracts generate significant savings that they have shared with their doctors. But the percentage of all payments made in these kinds of arrangements is still fairly small. The risk-taking portion of the healthcare business will not grow substantially as long as hospitals and specialists continue to make good money doing the same old fee-for-service thing.

Insurers have also taken the lead in some efforts to fortify primary care. United, which employs about 10% of the nation’s physicians, has been training them to practice evidence-based medicine and reduce waste. Elevance Health recently struck a deal with PE firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice to create a new primary care model in Elevance’s Millenium Physician Group and Carelon Health. This “whole-person health” model will emphasize the patient-doctor relationship, along with care coordination, referral management and health coaching within “value-based care” financial arrangements.

This is all to the good. But health insurers don’t make their profits by encouraging primary care doctors to take better care of patients. They use provider networks, prior authorization, high deductibles and other tools to limit access and the cost of services. In Medicare Advantage, carriers like United and Humana have used diagnostic coding to inflate their Medicare payments by an estimated $88 billion just this year. Efforts to infuse value-based care into healthcare delivery have not been a major priority for insurance companies.

Drug Company Profits
Whole books have been written about how the pharmaceutical industry has ripped off the American consumer. Following notorious, out-of-whack price increases over the years for drugs like insulin, Humira and Truvada, in 2022 net prices jumped 6.2% for Darzalex, 6% for Prolia, 7.2% for Xgeva, 6% for Perjeta, and 8.9% for Adcetris, among others. These price hikes, which were unsupported by new clinical evidence of the drugs’ effectiveness, netted from $63 million to $248 million in additional revenue for their manufacturers. Drug companies can get away with it because nothing in U.S. law prevents them from raising prices for patented medications by however much they want to. How they price their drugs can also have a strong impact on health costs as a whole, especially when a lot of people take a particular medication. Current examples include Wegovy, Ozempic and the other high-priced GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which eventually could cost the health system as much as $1 trillion a year — five times as much as could be saved in lower costs for other conditions — if prescribed to all obese Americans.

The kicker is that we spend nearly three times as much per person on prescription medicines as other leading countries do, because their governments bargain with pharmaceutical companies and ours doesn’t. Yet the drug makers complain that any limitations on their U.S. profits will make it impossible for them to develop more lifesaving medicines.

Overall, it’s clear that the corporatization of our healthcare system is not good for our health. In Portugal, for example, health spending per capita is one-fifth that of the U.S., yet life expectancy there is six years longer, on average, than in our country. The difference is largely rooted in the fact that Portugal has a national health service that guarantees access to healthcare, regardless of ability to pay. In other words, health takes precedence over profits in Portugal.

If we really want good healthcare at an affordable cost — the definition of value-based care — we have to move away from our profit-driven, corporatized healthcare model. As long as corporations are allowed to profit from healthcare, they will maximize those profits, regardless of the impact on consumers. It doesn’t matter how much we talk about value-based care or reforms that merely nip at corporate profits. Until Americans demand the same kind of healthcare that every Portuguese has, and insist that our government rein in the corporate owners of healthcare entities, we will get poorer healthcare and die sooner than citizens of other advanced countries.
Outcomes Matter. Customers Count. Value Rules.

Walmart Health’s Demise is Emblematic of the Nation’s Primary Care Conundrum

Posted on by • Posted in Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Primary Care, Primary Care Delivery Model, Primary Care Strategy, Private Equity, Retail Clinic, Retail Healthcare, Walmart, Whole-Person Health • Leave a comment
Walmart Health’s Demise is Emblematic of the Nation’s Primary Care Conundrum

Walmart’s announcement on April 30 that it was pulling the plug on Walmart Health stunned the healthcare ecosystem. [1] Few saw it coming.

Launched amid much fanfare in 2019, Walmart Health has operated 51 health centers in five states, with a robust virtual care platform. Walmart’s news release noted that “the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time.” Despite its legendary supply-chain capabilities, expansive market presence and sizable consumer demand for affordable primary care services, Walmart couldn’t make its business model work in healthcare.

Just two weeks earlier with much less fanfare, and in stark contrast to Walmart, the big health insurer Elevance announced it was doubling-down on primary care. On April 15, Elevance issued a news release detailing a new strategic partnership with the private-equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) to “accelerate innovation in primary care delivery, enhance the healthcare experience and improve health outcomes.” [2]

What gives? Why is Elevance expanding its primary care footprint when the retail behemoth Walmart believes investing in primary care is unprofitable? The answer lies at the heart of the debate over the future of U.S. healthcare. As a nation, the United States overinvests in healthcare delivery while underinvesting in preventive care and health promotion.

Enlightened healthcare companies, like Elevance, are attacking this imbalance aggressively.

Elevance isn’t alone. Other large health insurers — including UnitedHealthcare, CVS/Aetna and Humana — and some large health systems (e.g., AdventHealth, Corewell Health and Intermountain Healthcare) are investing in primary care services to support what I refer to as 3D-WPH, shorthand for “democratized and decentralized distribution of whole-person health.”

3D-WPH is the disruptive innovation that is rewiring U.S. healthcare to improve outcomes, lower costs, personalize care delivery and promote community wellbeing. It is an unstoppable force.

Transactional Versus Integrated Primary Care

Across multiple retail product and service categories — including groceries, clothing, electronics, financial services, generic drugs and vision care — Walmart applies ruthless efficiency management to increase consumer selection and lower prices. Consistent with the company’s mission of helping its customers to “save money and live better,”

Walmart Health provided routine, standalone primary care services at low, transparent prices. Despite scale and superior logistics, Walmart could not deliver these routine care services profitably.

Here’s the problem with applying Walmart’s retailing expertise to healthcare:

While exceptional primary care services are rarely profitable in their own right, they can reduce total care costs by limiting the need for subsequent acute care services. Preventive care works. Companies that invest in primary care can benefit by reducing total cost of care.

Unfortunately, few providers and payers practice this integrated approach to care delivery. Most providers rely on their primary care networks to refer patients for profitable specialty care services. Most payers use their primary care networks to deny access to these same specialty care services.

This competition between using primary care networks as referral and denial machines dramatically increases the intermediary costs of U.S. healthcare delivery. Patients get lost as these titanic payer-provider battles unfold, even as costs continue to rise, and health status continues to decline.

Whole-Person Health Works

A growing number of payers and providers, however, are recalibrating their business models to lower total care costs by integrating primary care services into a whole-person health delivery model.

In its news release, Elevance described its strategic partnership with CD&R as follows:

The strategic partnership’s advanced primary care models take a whole-health approach to address the physical, social and behavioral health of every person. The foundation of the new advanced primary care offering will be stronger patient-provider relationships supported by data-driven insights, care coordination and referral management, and integrated health coaching. It will also leverage realigned incentives through value-based care agreements that enable care providers, assist individuals in leading healthier lives, and make care more affordable.

“We know that when primary care providers are resourced and empowered, they guide consumers through some of life’s most vulnerable moments, while helping people to take control of their own health,” said Bryony Winn, president of health solutions at Elevance Health, in the news release. “By bringing a new model of advanced primary care to markets across the country, our partnership with CD&R will create a win-win for consumers and care providers alike.”

Whole health personalizes and integrates care delivery. I would suggest that transactional and fragmented primary care service provision cannot compete with 3D-WPH.

For all its strengths, Walmart Health is not positioned to advance whole-person health. Primary care service provision without connection to whole-person health is a recipe for financial disaster. Walmart Health’s demise confirms this market reality.

Moreover, whole-person health is not rocket science. The Veterans Health Administration (VA) has practiced 3D-WPH for more than 15 years. [3] It achieves better outcomes at two-thirds the per capita cost of Medicare with a much sicker population. [4]

Countries with nationalized health systems practice whole-person health expansively. With one-third the per capita income and one-fifth the per capita healthcare expenditure, Portugal has a life expectancy that is more than five years longer than it is in the United States. [5] Portugal achieves better population health metrics than the United States by operating community health networks throughout the country that combine primary care and public health services.

The VA, Portugal and numerous other organizations and countries prove the thesis that investing in primary care lowers total care costs and improves health outcomes. The evidence supporting this thesis is both compelling and incontrovertible.

Solving Healthcare’s Primary Care Conundrum

Economists refer to a circumstance when individuals overuse scarce public goods as a tragedy of the commons.

Public grazing fields highlight the challenge posed by such a circumstance. [6] It is in the financial interest of individual ranchers to overgraze their herd on a public grazing field. Overgrazing by all, however, would obliterate the grazing field, which is against the public’s interest.

Societies address these “tragedies” by establishing and enforcing rules to govern public goods.

U.S. healthcare, however, reverses this type of economic tragedy. Advanced primary care services represent a public good. All acknowledge the benefits and societal returns, yet few providers and payers invest in advanced primary care services. Providers don’t invest because it leads to lower treatment volumes. Payers don’t invest because primary care’s higher costs trigger higher premiums, prompting their members to switch plans.

We can’t solve the primary care conundrum until we enable both providers and payers to benefit from investments in advanced primary care services. Fragmented, transactional medicine, even when delivered efficiently, is not cost-effective. Walmart Health discovered this economic reality the hard way and exited the business.

By contrast, Elevance is reorganizing itself to overcome healthcare’s reverse tragedy of the commons. They are betting that offering advanced primary care services within integrated delivery networks will both lower costs and improve health outcomes. Healthcare’s future belongs to the companies, like Elevance, that are striving to solve the industry’s primary care conundrum.

Insurers and Private Equity Look to Join Forces to Further Consolidate Control of Americans’ Access to Health Care

Posted on by • Posted in 2024 Election Issues, Access, Antitrust, Health Insurance Industry, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Out of Network, Patient Referrals, Pharmacy Benefits Management, Physician Acquisition, Physician Employment, Physician Specialist, Private Equity • Leave a comment
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With both Republicans and Democrats taking on these Goliaths individually, this could be a watershed moment for bi-partisan action.

The push and pull between providers and insurance companies is as old as our health payment system. Doctors have long argued insurers pay too little and that they too often interfere in patient care.

Dramatic increases in prior authorization, aggressive payment negotiations and less-generous reimbursement to doctors by Medicare Advantage plans show there’s little question the balance of power in this equation has swung toward payers.

These practices have led some doctors to look for outside investment, namely private equity, to keep their cash flow healthy and their operations functional. The trend of private equity acquisitions of physician practices is worthy of the federal scrutiny it has attracted. Insurers have noticed this trend, too, and appear ready to propose a profitable partnership.

Bloomberg recently reported that CVS/Aetna is looking for a private equity partner to invest in Oak Street Health, the primary care business CVS acquired for $9.5 billion last year. Oak Street is a significant player in primary care delivery, particularly for Americans on Medicare, with more than 100 clinics nationwide. CVS is said to be exploring a joint venture with a private equity firm to significantly expand Oak Street’s footprint and therefore also expand the parent corporation’s direct control over care for millions of seniors and disabled Americans across hundreds of communities.

Republicans have led scrutiny of pharmacy benefit managers on Capitol Hill. And Democratic attacks on private equity in health care have recently intensified. I hope, then, that both parties would find common ground in being watchful of a joint venture between private equity and one of the country’s largest PBMs, Caremark, also owned by CVS/Aetna.

The combination of health insurers and PBMs over the last decade – United Healthcare and Optum; CVS/Aetna and Caremark, and Cigna and Express Scripts – has increasingly handed a few large corporations the ability to approve or deny claims, set payment rates for care, choose what prescriptions to dispense, what prescriptions should cost, and how much patients must pay out-of-pocket for their medications before their coverage kicks in.

As enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has grown to include a majority of the nation’s elderly and disabled people, we have seen insurers source record profits off the backs of the taxpayer-funded program. But in recent months, insurers have told investors they have had higher than expected Medicare Advantage claims – in particular CVS/Aetna, which took a hammering on Wall Street recently because its Medicare Advantage enrollees were using more health care services than company executives had expected.

It is natural, then, that one of the largest insurer-owned PBMs is looking to expand its hold on primary care for older Americans. Primary care is often the gateway to our health care system, driving referrals to specialists and procedures that lead to the largest claims insurers and their employer customers have to pay. By employing a growing number of primary care providers, CVS/Aetna can increasingly influence referrals to specialists and therefore the care or pharmacy benefit costs those patients may incur.

Control of primary care doctors holds another benefit for insurers: determination of what primary care doctor a patient sees.

People enrolled in an Aetna Medicare Advantage or employer-sponsored plan may find that care is easier to access at Oak Street clinics. Unfortunately, while that feels monopolistic and ethically alarming, this vertical integration has received relatively little scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators.

No law prevents an insurance company or PBM from kicking doctors it does not own out of network while creating preferential treatment for doctors directly employed by or closely affiliated with the corporate mothership.

In fact, the system largely incentivizes this. And shareholders expect insurers to keep up with their peers. As UnitedHealth Group has become increasingly aggressive in its acquisitions of physician practices – now employing or affiliated with about one in ten of the nation’s doctors – it has also become increasingly aggressive in its contract negotiations with physicians it does not control, particularly the specialists who depend on the referrals that come from primary care physicians.

That’s another area where looking to expand Oak Street Health makes smart business sense for CVS/Aetna. Specialist physicians are historically accustomed to higher compensation than primary care doctors and are used to striking hard-fought deals with insurers to stay in-network.

By controlling the flow of primary care referrals to specialists, CVS/Aetna can control what insurers have long-desired greater influence over: patient utilization. As a key driver of referrals to specialists in a specific market, CVS/Aetna will have even more power in contract negotiations with specialists.

As Oak Street’s clinics grow market share in the communities they serve, specialists in that market will feel even more pressured to stay in-network with Aetna and to refer prescriptions to CVS pharmacies. That has the dual benefit for CVS/Aetna of helping to predict what patients will be treated for once they go to a specialist and control over what the insurer will have to pay that specialist.

With different corporate owners, this sort of model could easily run afoul of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law.

No doctor or physician practice is allowed to receive anything of value for the referral of a patient. But that law only applies when there is separate ownership between the referring doctor and the specialist.

CVS/Aetna would clearly be securing value – in the form of lower patient utilization and effective reimbursement rates – under this model. But with Oak Street owned by CVS/Aetna and specialists forced to agree to lower reimbursement rates through negotiations with an insurer that appears separate from Oak Street, there’s no basis for a claim under the Stark Law. There may be antitrust implications, but those are more difficult and take longer to prove – and the fact the federal government cleared CVS/Aetna to acquire Oak Street Health last year wouldn’t help that argument.

This model is already of concern, which is why I continue to urge examination of increasing insurer control of physicians across the country. Their embrace of private equity to accelerate this model is truly alarming. And given Democrats’ recent focus on private equity in health care, they should work with their Republican colleagues who are rightly alarmed about the increasingly anti-competitive, monopolistic health insurance industry.

Handicapping the Players in the Quest for Healthcare Affordability

Posted on by • Posted in 2024 Election Issues, Affordability, Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Healthcare Reform, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Medical Debt, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pharmaceutical Industry, Physician, Private Equity, Retail Healthcare • Leave a comment
Handicapping the Players in the Quest for Healthcare Affordability

As campaigns for November elections gear up for early voting and Congress considers bipartisan reforms to limit consolidation and enhance competition in U.S. healthcare, prospective voters are sending a cleat message to would-be office holders:

Healthcare Affordability must be addressed directly, transparently and now.

Polling by Gallup, Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew have consistently shown healthcare affordability among top concerns to voters alongside inflation, immigration and access to abortion. It is higher among Democratic-leaning voters but represents the majority in every socio-economic cohort–young and old, low and middle income and households with/without health insurance coverage., urban and rural and so on.  

It’s understandable: household economic security is declining: per the Federal Reserve’s latest household finances report:

  • 72% of US adults say they are doing well financially (down from 78% in 2021)
  • 54% say they have emergency savings to cover 3 months expenses ($400)—down from high of 59% in 2015.
  • 69% say their finances deteriorated in 2023. They’re paying more for groceries, fuel, insurance premiums and childcare.
  • Renters absorbed a 10% increase last year and mortgage interest spike has put home ownership beyond reach for 6 in 10 households

Thus, household financial security is the issue and healthcare expenses play a key role. Drug prices, hospital consolidation, price transparency and corporate greed will get frequent recognition in candidate rhetoric. “Reform” will be promised. And each sector in the industry will offer solutions that place the blame on others.

Granted, the U.S. health system lacks a uniform definition of healthcare affordability. It’s a flaw. In the Affordable Care Act, it was framed in the context of an individual’s eligibility for government-subsidized insurance coverage (8.39% adjusted gross income for households between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level). But a broader application to the entire population was overlooked. Nonetheless, economists, regulators and consumers recognize the central role healthcare affordability plays in household financial security.

Handicapping the major players potential to win the hearts and minds of voters about healthcare affordability is tricky:

  • Each major sector has seen the ranks of its membership decrease and the influence (and visibility) of its bigger players increase. They’re easy targets for industry critics.
  • Each sector is seeing private equity and non-traditional players play bigger roles. The healthcare landscape is expanding beyond the traditional players.
  • Each sector is struggling to make their cases for incremental reforms while employers, legislators and consumers want more. Bipartisan support for anything is a rarity: an exception is antipathy toward healthcare consolidation and lack of price transparency.
  • All recognize that affordability is complicated. Unit cost and price increases for goods and services are the culprit: excess utilization is secondary.

Against this backdrop, here’s a scorecard on the current state of preparedness as each navigates affordability going into Campaign 2024:

SectorAdvantagesDisadvantagesHandicap Score1=Unprepared to5=Well Prepared
HospitalsCommunity presence (employer, safety net)
Economic impact
Influence in Congress
Scale: 30% of spending + direct employment of 52% of physicians
Access to capital		Lack of costs & price transparency Unit costs inflation due to wage, supply chain & admin
Shifting demand for core services.
Low entry barriers for key services
Regulator headwind (state, federal).
Operating, governing culture
Value proposition erosion with employers, pre-Medicare populations
Consumer orientation 		3
PhysiciansConsumer trust
Influence in Congress
Shared savings (Medicare)
Essentiality
Specialization
Access to technology 		Care continuity
Inadequacy of primary care
Disorganization (fragmentation)
Value of shared savings to general population (beyond Medicare)
Culture: change-averse (education, licensing performance measurement, et al)
Data: costs, outcomes 		2
Drug ManufacturersIncreasing product demand
Influence in Congress
Public trust in drug efficacy
Insurance structure that limits consumer price sensitivity to OOP
Potential for AI -enabled discovery, market access
Access to private capital
Congress’ constraint on PBMs		Unit cost escalation
Lack of price transparency
Growing disaffection for FDA
Long-term Basic Research Funding
State Price Control Momentum
Market access
Restrictive Formulary Growth
Transparency in Distributor-PBM business relationships
Public perception of corporate greed 		2
Health InsurersAvailability of claims, cost data
Employer tax exemptions
Growing government market
Plan design: OOP, provider access
Public association: coverage = financial security
Access to private capital  		Escalating premiums
Declining group market
Growing regulatory scrutiny (consolidation, data protection)
Tension with health systems
Value proposition erosion among government, employers, consumers   		4
Retail HealthNon-incumbrance of restrictive regulatory framework
Consumer acceptance
Breadth of product opportunities
Access to private capital
Opportunity for care management (i.e. CVS- Epic)
Operational orientation to consumers (convenience, pricing, et al)
Potential with employers,  		Lack of access, coordination with needed specialty care
Threat of regulatory restraint on growth
Risks associated with care management models   		3

The biggest, investor-owned health insurers own the advantage today. As in other sectors, they’re growing faster than their smaller peers and enjoy advantages of scale and private capital access to fund their growth. A handful of big players in the other sectors stand-out, but their affordability solutions are, to date, not readily active.

In each sector above, there is consensus that a fundamental change in the structure, function and oversight of the U.S. health is eminent. In all, tribalism is an issue: publicly-owned, not for profits vs. investor-owned, independent vs. affiliated, big vs. small and so on.

Getting consensus to address affordability head on is hard, so not much is done by the sectors themselves. And none is approaching the solution in its necessary context—the financial security of a households facing unprecedented pressures to make ends meet. In all likelihood, the bigger, more prominent organizations in their ranks of these sectors will deliver affordability solutions well-above the lowest common denominators that are comfortable for most Thus, health care affordability will be associated with organizational brands and differentiated services, not the sectors from which their trace their origins. And it will be based on specified utilization, costs, outcome and spending guarantees to consumers and employers that are reasonable and transparent.

Judge dismisses FTC’s antitrust suit against Welsh Carson

Posted on by • Posted in Antitrust, Competition, Dept of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Law Enforcement, Lawsuit, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Private Equity • Leave a comment
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/ftc-welsh-carson-usap-lawsuit-texas-dismissed/716080/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202024-05-15%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:62072%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

Regulators sued the PE firm last year for consolidating anesthesiology services in Texas with its portfolio company, U.S. Anesthesia Partners. Now, a judge is holding Welsh Carson blameless.

A Texas federal judge has dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe in a big win for the private equity firm. However, the government’s suit against Welsh Carson’s portfolio company U.S. Anesthesia Partners was allowed to continue.

Last year, the FTC sued Welsh Carson and USAP, alleging they pursued a buying spree of anethesiology practices in Texas to create a dominant provider that used its market power to suppress competition and increase the cost of anesthesiology services.

Welsh Carson, which formed USAP in 2012, has since whittled down its ownership of the provider from more than 50% to 23%, and argued that precludes it from being included in the suit. The FTC argued the firm effectively remains in control of USAP.

However, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt granted Welsh Carson’s motion to dismiss the suit on Tuesday, essentially finding that private equity firms are not liable for the actions of their portfolio companies.

The FTC was unable to prove “any authority for the proposition that receiving profits from an entity that may be violating antitrust laws is itself a violation of antitrust laws,” Hoyt wrote in his opinion.

Hoyt found that Welsh Carson holding a minority share in USAP does not reduce competition, despite USAP’s acquisitions potentially being anticompetitive themselves. In addition, comments from Welsh Carson executives expressing a desire to consolidate other healthcare markets don’t show that the PE firm plans to violate antitrust laws.

If Welsh Carson signals “beyond mere speculation and conjecture” that it’s actually about to violate the law, the FTC can lodge a new lawsuit, the judge wrote.

A spokesperson for Welsh Carson said the firm is “gratified” that the court dismissed the case.

”As we have said from the beginning, this case was without factual or legal basis,” the spokesperson said.

However, Hoyt denied USAP’s motion to dismiss.

The FTC is arguing that USAP — which is the largest anesthesia practice in Texas — leveraged its size to raise prices in the state, resulting in patients, employers and insurers paying tens of millions of dollars more each year for anesthesia services. In addition, USAP allegedly paid a competitor, Envision Healthcare, $9 million to stay out of the Dallas market for five years.

USAP has been criticized for using similar practices to grow in other states, including Colorado.

USAP argued the FTC was overreaching its authority, and regulators’ allegations of anticompetitive conduct were meritless. Hoyt disagreed, pointing out that USAP continues to own the acquired anesthesia groups and continues to charge high prices, including under price-setting agreements. Overall, USAP’s “monopolization scheme remains intact,” according to the opinion.

“The FTC has plausibly alleged acquisitions resulting in higher prices for consumers, along with a market allocation and price-setting scheme. It would be premature to dismiss these claims at this stage,” Hoyt said.

Either way, the dismissal against Welsh Carson is a setback for the FTC, which has taken a more aggressive stance against anticompetitive behaviors in the healthcare industry under the Biden administration.

In December, the FTC and the Department of Justice finalized new guidelines for merger reviews taking aim at previously overlooked practices. Those include private equity roll-ups, when firms acquire and merge multiple small businesses into one larger company — like Welsh Carson’s strategy to grow USAP.

PE firms have acquired hundreds of physician practices across the U.S. in recent years, despite controversy over negative effects on medical quality and cost. One study from 2022 found when private equity took over physician practices, they raised prices by 20% on average.

The FTC declined to comment for this story.

As Steward Ship Was Sinking, CEO Bought $40M Yacht

Posted on by • Posted in Bankruptcy, CEO, Chapter 11, Private Equity • Leave a comment
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/110025?xid=nl_mpt_investigative2024-05-08&eun=g885344d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=InvestigativeMD_050824&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_InvestigateMD_Active

A peculiar private equity deal screwed over an already struggling hospital system while reaping profits for executives, according to the Wall Street Journalopens in a new tab or window.

Back in 2020, Steward Health Care System needed $400 million to dig it “out of a deep financial hole.” Instead of investing in the struggling health system, Steward’s owner, Cerberus Capital Management, reportedly convinced Steward’s landlord, Medical Properties Trust (MPT), to provide the cash infusion.

Cerberus also sold its majority stake in Steward to a group that included the health system’s CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD, WSJ reported.

MPT had to put up millions of dollars for its tenant over a series of financial deals, and recent Congressional inquiries uncovered more details about how that went down. The first part of the cash infusion came in $205 million from MPT to invest in overseas hospitals in a joint venture with Steward. The second half was covered when MPT forgave the mortgage for a Steward hospital and paid $200 million for two Utah hospitals.

In the end, Cerberus ended up with a whopping $800 million in profit while Steward filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week, WSJ reported.

Oh, and de la Torre bought a $40 million yacht with the proceeds of a 2021 payout related to his ownership of Steward.

Where Does Medicare Go From Here: Profit-Driven Chaos or Patient-Centered Community?

Posted on by • Posted in 2024 Election Issues, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Lobbyist, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Private Equity, Profit Motive • Leave a comment
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After covering the Medicare privatization crisis for over two years, an investigative reporter takes a step back and examines what’s at stake.

Medicare, the country’s largest and arguably most successful health care program, is under duress, weakened by decades of relentless efforts by insurance companies to privatize it.

A rapidly growing Medicare Advantage market — now 52% of Medicare beneficiaries, up from 37% in 2018 — controlled by some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, threatens to both drain the trust fund and eliminate Medicare’s most important and controversial component: its ability to set prices. 

It is not an overstatement to call it a heist of historic proportions, endangering the health not only of the more than 65 million seniors and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare but all Americans who benefit from the powerful role that Medicare has historically played in reining in health care costs.

The giant corporations that dominate Medicare Advantage have rigged the system to maximize payments from our government to the point that they are now being overpaid between $88 billion and $140 billion a year. The overpayments could soar to new heights if the insurers get their way and eliminate traditional Medicare.

All of America’s seniors and disabled people who depend on Medicare could soon be moved to a managed care model of ever-tightening networks, relentless prior authorization requirements and limited drug formularies. The promise of a humane health care system for all would be sacrificed at the altar of the almighty insurer dollar. 

The Medicare Payments Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the independent congressional agency tasked with overseeing Medicare, last month released a searing report which found that Medicare spends 22% more per beneficiary in Medicare Advantage plans than if those beneficiaries had been enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. That’s up from a 6% estimate in the prior year.  

A similar cost trend exists for diagnosis coding.

Medicare Advantage plans and their affiliated providers increasingly upcoded diagnoses to get higher reimbursements. In 2024, overpayments due to upcoding could total $50 billion, according to MedPAC, up from $23 billion in 2023. These enormous overpayments drive up the cost of premiums — MedPAC’s conservative estimate is that the premiums paid to Medicare out of seniors’ Social Security checks will be $13 billion higher in 2024 because of those overpayments. 

There is evidence that Americans and lawmakers are starting to wake up.

Medicare Advantage enrollment growth slowed considerably in 2023. Support within the Democratic Party for Medicare Advantage is cratering. In 2022, 147 House Democrats signed an industry-backed letter supporting Medicare Advantage. This year, just 24 House Democrats signed the letter. Earlier this month, the Biden administration cut Medicare Advantage base payments for the second year in a row (while still increasing payments overall), over the fierce opposition of the insurance lobby. The investment bank Stephens called Biden’s decision a “highly adverse” outcome for insurers. Wall Street has taken note, punishing the stock price of the largest Medicare Advantage insurers, with Barron’s noting that Wall Street’s “love affair” with Humana is “ending in tears.” The cargo ship is turning. It is up to us to determine if that will be enough. 

We can’t attack a problem if we don’t know how to diagnose it. I spoke with some of the most knowledgeable critics of Medicare Advantage about the danger the rapid expansion of Medicare privatization presents to the American public.

Rick Gilfillan is a medical doctor who in 2010 became the first director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He would go on to serve as CEO of Trinity Health from 2013 to 2019. In 2021 he launched an effort to halt the involuntary privatization of Medicare benefits. 

“Right now, all investigations are finding tremendous overpayments,” Gilfillan said. “The overpayments are based on medical diagnoses that may or may not be meaningful from a patient care standpoint. Insurers are using chart reviews, nurse home visits and AI software to find as many diagnoses as possible and thereby inflate the health risks of the patients and the premium they get from Medicare. The overpayments are just outrageous,” he said.

The problem could get worse if the Supreme Court curtails the powers of regulatory agencies, as it may do this year.  “It would make a huge difference in what CMS would be able to do,” Gilfillan said.

The logic behind Medicare privatization is that seniors and people with disabilities use too much care, egged on by their doctors. If true, a solution could have been to enforce the Stark Law, which bans physicians from having financial relationships with providers they refer to, or other anti-kickback statutes. States could also enforce laws 33 of them have enacted that prohibit the “corporate practice of medicine.” 

Instead, health insurers were invited and incentivized by previous administrations to compete with the original Medicare program and “manage” beneficiaries’ care. Under this model— set in its modern form in 2003 — Medicare Advantage insurers are paid a rate based on a complex risk modeling process and estimated costs.

But Medicare Advantage plans have never been cheaper than traditional Medicare, as MedPAC has repeatedly pointed out.  

This is a far more complex approach than the fee-for-service model in which CMS sets prices in health care in a public and transparent manner, Gilfillan notes. The prices negotiated by Medicare Advantage companies, by contrast, are not disclosed.

“With fee-for-service, a patient is provided a service, treatment or medication. The physician who provides the service charges a specific amount for that service,” Gilfillan said. “And then Medicare  pays whatever it decided it was worth for that service. The benefit is you pay for what you get.”

Some Medicare Advantage plans use a “capitated” approach in paying primary care physicians. The amount is based on the premium they receive for the patient. The more codes submitted, the higher the capitation, the greater the profit. That approach is having far-reaching economic impacts on health care, said Hayden Rooke-Ley, an Oregon-based lawyer and health care consultant who co-authored a recent New England Journal of Medicine article on the corporatization of primary care. It is the capitation model, he says, that drives the rampant upcoding among Medicare Advantage plans. 

From Horizontal to Vertical

“An undercovered aspect of Medicare Advantage is the way it is fueling vertical consolidation” in the insurance business, Rooke-Ley added, noting that until recent years, insurers bulked up by buying smaller competitors (known as horizontal integration). “With so much government money, we’re seeing insurance companies restructuring themselves as vertically integrated conglomerates [through the acquisition of physician practices, clinics and pharmacy operations] to become even more profitable, especially in Medicare Advantage.”

“A key part of this strategy is to own primary care practices,” he said, citing Humana’s partnership with the private-equity firm Welsh Carson to become the largest owner of Medicare-based primary care, CVS/Aetna’s acquisition of Oak Street, and UnitedHealth’s roll up of doctors practices across the country.

As Rooke-Ley explained, control of primary care allows insurance companies to more easily manipulate “risk scores” to increase payments from the government by claiming patients are in worse health than they really are.

“The easiest way to increase risk scores, short of simply fabricating diagnosis codes, is to control the behavior of physicians and other clinicians,” he said. 

“When an insurance company owns the physician practice, it can configure workflows, technology, and incentives to drive risk coding.

UnitedHealth, for example, can preferentially schedule Medicare Advantage patients – and it can choose to reach out to health plan enrollees it identifies with its data as having high ‘coding opportunities.’ It can require its doctors to go to risk-code training, and it can prohibit doctors from closing their notes before they address all the ‘suggested’ diagnosis codes.” 

“While Medicare Advantage insurance companies tout all their provider acquisitions as investments in value-based care, the concern is that it’s really just looking like a game of financialization,” Rooke-Ley said. “MA was supposed to save Medicare money, but the exact opposite has happened.

According to MedPAC, the government will over-subsidize MA to the tune of $88 billion this year, with $54 billion of that due to excess risk coding relative to what we see in traditional Medicare. That’s a staggering amount of money that could go directly to patients and clinicians by strengthening traditional Medicare.”   

Two Possible Futures

There are two options for the future of Medicare, said Dr. Ed Weisbart, former chief medical officer of the pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, which Cigna bought in 2018, who now leads the Missouri chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.

In one future, he said, “We will change the trajectory and get rid of the profiteers, and manage to divert the funds that are being profiteered to patient care.”

In another future, the business practices of Medicare Advantage plans “will be unfettered and more damaging and harmful than they are today,” he said. “If we continue on this course we’ll find an increasingly polarized health care system that caters increasingly to the wealthy and privileged. The barriers to care will be worse.” 

Is Private Equity the Solution or the Problem in Healthcare?

Posted on by • Posted in Affordability, Cherry Picking, Health Policy, Lobbyist, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Mergers & Acquisitions, Price Transparency, Pricing Leverage, Private Equity, Public Good, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception • Leave a comment
Is Private Equity the Solution or the Problem in Healthcare?

Of late, private equity investors in healthcare services have faced intense criticism that their business practices have compromised patient safety and raised costs for consumers. March 5, the FTC, DOJ and HHS announced the launch of an investigation into the inner workings of PE in healthcare. It comes on the heels of U.S. Senate investigations in their Finance, HELP and Budget Committees to explore legislative levers they might pull to address their growing concerns about affordability, competition and accountability in the industry.

PE funds don’t welcome the spotlight. 

Their business model lends to misinformation and disinformation: company takeovers by new owners are rarely treated as good news unless the circumstance under prior ownership was dire. Even then, attention shifts quickly to the fairness of the PE business model playbook: acquire the asset on favorable terms, replace management, reduce operating costs, grow and the sell in 5-7 years at a profit using debt to finance the deal along the way. In exchange, the PE fund’s General Partner gets an annual management fee of 2% plus 20% of the value they create when they sell the company or take it public, and favorable tax treatment (carried interest) on their gain.

Concern about PE in healthcare services comes at a particularly delicate time: hospitals. nursing homes, outpatient care, medical practices, clinics et al) are still feeling the after-effects of the pandemic, proposed reimbursement bumps by Medicare for hospitals and physicians do not offset medical inflation and the Change Healthcare cybersecurity breach February 21 has created cash flow issues for all.

Concern about PE ownership was high already.

Innovations funded through PE-backed organizations have been drowned out by the steady drip of peer reviewed and industry-sponsored studies a causal relationship between PE ownership decreased quality and patient safety and increased prices and worker discontent. Nonetheless, PE-owns 4% of hospitals (among 36% that are investor-owned, 13% of medical practices and 6% of nursing homes today and they’re increasing in all cohorts of health services.

Here are the facts:

Private equity enjoys significant influence in public policy including healthcare. Direct lobbying activity by PE funds in Congress and state legislatures is well-funded and effective, especially by the It is increasingly 20 global fund sponsors that control 46% of assets under management. Cash on hand and fund-raising by PE are strong and healthcare remains an important but non-exclusive target of PE investing.

2023 was a down year for PE, 2024 will be strong: the IPO market and sponsor- to sponsor transactions dipped, and deal values shrank. Even with interest rates remaining high, returns exceeded overall growth in the stock market for deals consummated. At the same time, PE raised $1.2 trillion last year and has $2.6 trillion of dry powder to invest. Healthcare services will be a target as PE deal activity increases in 2024.

In U.S. healthcare, PE investments are significant and increasing.  Technology-enabled services that lower unit costs and AI-based solutions that enable standardization and workforce efficiency will garner higher valuations and greater PE interest than traditional services. Valuations will recover from record 2023 lows and dry powder will be deployed for roll-ups despite antitrust concerns and government investigations. Congress will investigate the impact on PE on patient safety, prices and competition and, in tandem with FTC and DOJ issue guidance: compliance will be mandated and financial penalties added. But displacement of PE in health services is unlikely.

Some notable data:

  • Private equity funds have $2.49 trillion of cash on hand to invest—up 7% from 2022. They raised $1.2 trillion globally in 2023. 26% of its global dry powder is more than 4 years old—undeployed.
  • Private equity groups globally are sitting on a record 28,000 unsold companies worth more than $3tn. 40% of the companies waiting to be sold are at least four years old. Last year, the combined value of companies that the industry sold privately or on public markets fell 44% and the value of companies sold to other buyout groups fell 47%.
  • Private equity investments in almost every sector in healthcare are significant, and until lately, increasing. Last year, deals were down 16.2% (from 940 to 788) cutting across every sector. In some sectors, like physician services, PE deals were tuck-in’s to their previous platform investments increasing from 75 deals in 2012 to 484 deals in 2021.
  • PE investments in US healthcare exceeded $1 trillion in the last 10 years. Investments in healthcare services i.e. acute, long-term, ambulatory and physician services– have been less profitable to investors than PE investments in technology, devices and therapeutics (based on the ratio of Enterprise Value to EBITDA) but exceed equity-market returns overall.
  • Peer reviewed studies have shown causal relationships between private equity ownership of hospitals, nursing homes and medical practices with lower operating costs, higher staff turnover, high prices and higher profits.

My take:

Like it or not, private equity investment in healthcare is here to stay. The likelihood of higher taxes paid by employers and individuals to fund the health system is nil. The majority (69%) of the public think it wasteful and inefficient (See Polling below). The majority believe it puts its profits above all else. The majority think it needs major change. That’s not new, but it’s felt more intensely and more widely than ever.

That means accommodation for private capital, including private equity, is not a major concern to voters: the prices they pay matters more than who owns the organization.

Tighter regulation of private equity, including more rights given to the Limited Partners who invest in the PE funds and limitations on public officials who become fund advisors, are likely. Bad actors will be vilified by regulators and elected officials. Media scrutiny of specific PE funds and their GPs will intensify as PE public reporting regulations commence. And investments made by not-for-profit multi-hospital systems and independent hospitals will be critical elements in upcoming Congressional and regulatory policy setting about their community benefit accountability and tax exemptions.

The public’s major concern about its healthcare industry is affordability. To the extent PE-backed solutions offer lower-cost, higher-value alternatives on a playing field that’s level with respect to equitable access and demand-management, they will be at the table.

To the extent PE-backed solutions cherry-pick the system’s low-hanging fruit at the expense of patient safety and affordability sans any regulatory restriction, they’ll breed public discontent from those they choose to ignore.

So, the reality is this: PE’s focus is generating profits for its GP and their LPs. Doing business in a socially responsible way is a fund’s prerogative. Some do it better than others.

PE is part of healthcare’s solution to its poorly structured, perpetually inadequate and mal-distributed funding. But creating a level playing field through meaningful regulatory reform is necessary first.

PS Among the stickier issues facing hospitals is site-neutral payments. Hospitals oppose the proposal reasoning the overhead structure for their outpatient services (HOPD) include indirect & direct costs for services provided those unable to pay i.e. emergency services. Proponents of the change argue that what’s done is the key, not where it’s done, and uniform pricing is common sense. Leavitt Partners has advanced a compromise: a Unified Ambulatory Payment System for HOPDs, ASCs and physician clinics that would be applied to 66 services starting

US Anesthesia Partners settles with Colorado regulators

Posted on by • Posted in Anesthesia, Antitrust, Attorney General, Competition, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Lawsuit, Lawsuit Settlement, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Private Equity • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/fc76f0b48924/gist-weekly-march-1-2024?e=d1e747d2d8

Dallas, TX-based US Anesthesia Partners (USAP), one of the nation’s largest providers of anesthesia services, reached a settlement with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which had alleged that USAP engaged in anticompetitive behavior in the state.

Although it denies any wrongdoing, USAP agreed to relinquish exclusive contracts with five Colorado hospitals and revise its practice of adding noncompete agreements to its physician contracts.

This settlement is separate from the similar FTC suit against USAP and its creator-turned-minority owner, private-equity (PE) firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe. That suit, filed in federal district court in Texas in September 2023, alleges that USAP monopolized the Texas anesthesiology market in order to drive up prices unlawfully. 

The Gist: USAP isn’t the only large anesthesia group in the news this week for allegations of anticompetitive behavior—hospitals in New York and Florida are suing North American Partners in Anesthesia, claiming it stifles competition by forcing its physicians to sign noncompete agreements. 

Health systems and regulators are increasingly dissatisfied with the highly concentrated anesthesia provider market, which has become dominated by large, PE-backed groups. 

Because the Colorado case was settled out of court, no precedent has been established for antitrust enforcement, but the result of the ongoing FTC suit against USAP may have significant ramifications for other large, PE-backed physician organizations.

Has U.S. Healthcare reached its Tipping Point?

Posted on by • Posted in Affordability, Cost Management, Dept of Justice (DOJ), Disruption, Disruptive Technology, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Healthcare Industry, Healthcare Reform, High Drug Prices, Inflation, Innovation, Innovative Care Models, Integrated Delivery System, Meaningful, Price Transparency, Private Equity, Tipping Point, Transformation, Transformational Change • Leave a comment
Has U.S. Healthcare reached its Tipping Point?

Last week was significant for healthcare:

  • Tuesday, the, FTC, and DOJ announced creation of a task force focused on tackling “unfair and illegal pricing” in healthcare. The same day, HHS joined FTC and DOJ regulators in launching an investigation with the DOJ and FTC probing private equity’ investments in healthcare expressing concern these deals may generate profits for corporate investors at the expense of patients’ health, workers’ safety and affordable care.
  • Thursday’s State of the Union address by President Biden (SOTU) and the Republican response by Alabama Senator Katey Britt put the spotlight on women’s reproductive health, drug prices and healthcare affordability.
  • Friday, the Senate passed a $468 billion spending bill (75-22) that had passed in the House Wednesday (339-85) averting a government shutdown. The bill postpones an $8 billion reduction in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments for a year, allocates $4.27 billion to federally qualified health centers through the end of the year and rolls back a significant portion of a Medicare physician pay cut that kicked in on Jan. 1. Next, Congress must pass appropriations for HHS and other agencies before the March 22 shutdown.
  • And all week, the cyberattack on Optum’s Change Healthcare discovered February 21 hovered as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and others scrambled to manage gaps in transaction processing. Notably, the American Hospital Association and others have amplified criticism of UnitedHealth Group’s handling of the disruption, having, bought Change for $13 billion in October, 2022 after a lengthy Department of Justice anti-trust review. This week, UHG indicates partial service of CH support will be restored. Stay tuned.

Just another week for healthcare: Congressional infighting about healthcare spending. Regulator announcements of new rules to stimulate competition and protect consumers in the healthcare market.  Lobbying by leading trade groups to protect funding and disable threats from rivals. And so on.

At the macro level, it’s understandable: healthcare is an attractive market, especially in its services sectors. Since the pandemic, prices for services (i.e. physicians, hospitals et al) have steadily increased and remain elevated despite the pressures of transparency mandates and insurer pushback. By contrast, prices for most products (drugs, disposables, technologies et al) have followed the broader market pricing trends where prices for some escalated fast and then dipped.

While some branded prescription medicines are exceptions, it is health services that have driven the majority of health cost inflation since the pandemic.

UnitedHealth Group’s financial success is illustrative: 

it’s big, high profile and vertically integrated across all major services sectors. In its year end 2023 financial report (January 12, 2024) it reported revenues of $371.6 Billion (up 15% Year-Over-Year), earnings from operations up 14%, cash flows from operations of $29.1 Billion (1.3x Net Income), medical care ratio at 83.2% up from 82% last year, net earnings of $23.86/share and adjusted net earnings of $25.12/share and guidance its 2024 revenues of $400-403 billion. They buy products using their scale and scope leverage to  pay less for services they don’t own less and products needed to support them. It’s a big business in a buyer’s market and that’s unsettling to many.

Big business is not new to healthcare:

it’s been dominant in every sector but of late more a focus of unflattering regulator and media attention. Coupled with growing public discontent about the system’s effectiveness and affordability, it seems it’s near a tipping point.

David Johnson, one of the most thoughtful analysts of the health industry, reminded his readers last week that the current state of affairs in U.S. healthcare is not new citing the January 1970 Fortune cover story “Our Ailing Medical System”

 “American medicine, the pride of the nation for many years, stands now on the brink of chaos. To be sure, our medical practitioners have their great moments of drama and triumph. But much of U.S. medical care, particularly the everyday business of preventing and treating routine illnesses, is inferior in quality, wastefully dispensed, and inequitably financed…

Whether poor or not, most Americans are badly served by the obsolete, overstrained medical system that has grown up around them helter-skelter. … The time has come for radical change.”

Johnson added: “The healthcare industry, however, cannot fight gravity forever. Consumerism, technological advances and pro-market regulatory reforms are so powerful and coming so fast that status-quo healthcare cannot forestall their ascendance. Properly harnessed, these disruptive forces have the collective power necessary for U.S. healthcare to finally achieve the 1970 Fortune magazine goal of delivering “good care to every American with little increase in cost.”

He’s right.

I believe the U.S. health system as we know it has reached its tipping point. The big-name organizations in every sector see it and have nominal contingency plans in place; the smaller players are buying time until the shoe drops. But I am worried.

I am worried the system’s future is in the hands of hyper-partisanship by both parties seeking political advantage in election cycles over meaningful creation of a health system that functions for the greater good.

I am worried that the industry’s aversion to price transparency, meaningful discussion about affordability and consistency in defining quality, safety and value will precipitate short-term gamesmanship for reputational advantage and nullify systemness and interoperability requisite to its transformation.

I am worried that understandably frustrated employers will drop employee health benefits to force the system to needed accountability.

I am worried that the growing armies of under-served and dissatisfied populations will revolt.

I am worried that its workforce is ill-prepared for a future that’s technology-enabled and consumer centric.

I am worried that the industry’s most prominent trade groups are concentrating more on “warfare” against their rivals and less about the long-term future of the system.

I am worried that transformational change is all talk.

It’s time to start an adult conversation about the future of the system. The starting point: acknowledging that it’s not about bad people; it’s about systemic flaws in its design and functioning. Fixing it requires balancing lag indicators about its use, costs and demand with assumptions about innovations that hold promise to shift its trajectory long-term. It requires employers to actively participate: in 2009-2010, Big Business mistakenly chose to sit out deliberations about the Affordable Care Act. And it requires independent, visionary facilitation free from bias and input beyond the DC talking heads that have dominated reform thought leadership for 6 decades.

Or, collectively, we can watch events like last week’s roll by and witness the emergence of a large public utility serving most and a smaller private option for those that afford it. Or something worse.

P.S. Today, thousands will make the pilgrimage to Orlando for HIMSS24 kicking off with a keynote by Robert Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health tomorrow about ‘transformational change’ and closing Friday with a keynote by Nick Saban, legendary Alabama football coach on leadership. In between, the meeting’s 24 premier supporters and hundreds of exhibitors will push their latest solutions to prospects and customers keenly aware healthcare’s future is not a repeat of its past primarily due to technology. Information-driven healthcare is dependent on technologies that enable cost-effective, customized evidence-based care that’s readily accessible to individuals where and when they want it and with whom.

And many will be anticipating HCA Mission Health’s (Asheville NC) Plan of Action response due to CMS this Wednesday addressing deficiencies in 6 areas including CMS Deficiency 482.12 “which ensures that hospitals have a responsible governing body overseeing critical aspects of patient care and medical staff appointments.” Interest is high outside the region as the nation’s largest investor-owned system was put in “immediate jeopardy” of losing its Medicare participation status last year at Mission. FYI: HCA reported operating income of $7.7 billion (11.8% operating margin) on revenues of $65 billion in 2023.