Disagreement arose over how an increase in private equity activity will affect the field of cardiology during a forum held by the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session 2025 in Chicago, Medscape reported April 9.
Of the 342 cardiology clinics that have been acquired in the past decade, more than 94% of acquisitions occurred during 2021 to 2023, according to the report. While private equity has a more established presence in other fields, such as orthopedics and ophthalmology, the newness of private equity’s presence in the field sparked discourse among cardiology experts.
“Private equity is neither inherently good nor bad,” said Jerry Blackwell, MD, president and chief medical officer of MedAxiom, in the report. He added that there is “tremendous heterogeneity” in private equity ownership contracts, and the fragmented nature of cardiology make it an ideal space for such investors.
“Private equity in the hospital space is nothing like private equity in the practice space,” he added. “Most of the horror stories you’re going to hear are in the hospital space. There are some horror stories in the practice space, but they’ve got nothing to do with cardiology.”
However, due to the way that private equity incentives are often structured, there may still be cause for concern over its presence in the space.
“[There] is a strong incentive to generate financial returns over very short time horizons. There’s concern that that could adversely affect patient care,” Dr. Blackwell said.
There are also some that private equity groups may be taking a less traditional approach to cardiology. Becker’s recently reported on a new partnership between Philadelphia-based Atria Health, backed by Cypress Capital Ridge, and Horsham, Pa.-based AMS Cardiology, a 40-year-old cardiovascular practice.
The partnership avoids a traditional acquisition model by focusing on a more collaborative approach to investing in and growing physician practices.
“The idea was that if we could harness some of the resources that a private equity entity could bring to the table without having to sell the practice, that would be threading the needle,” Adam Cohen, MD, president of AMS Cardiology, told Becker’s.
For Dr. Cohen, the partnership not only helps support AMS’ day-to-day operations, but has empowered the practice to take advantage of growth opportunities more readily and quickly than it would without a partner.
“We were looking at the future of healthcare and recognizing that there were opportunities in front of us that were really unique and time sensitive,” he said. “We were thinking that, while we might be able to take advantage of those things, they were probably going to take longer for us to do organically. They would be a bit riskier and might take a little more horsepower than we necessarily had within our practice structure at the time.”
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