Private equity groups are cashing in on rising rates of alcohol and drug addiction in the U.S. But they aren’t necessarily investing in centers with the best treatment standards, and they often cut extra services.
Doctors, consumer advocates, and some lawmakers are looking forward to a California lawsuit against private equity-backed Envision Healthcare. The case is part of a multistate effort to enforce rules banning corporate ownership of physician practices.
A months-long KHN examination of the system meant to bar fraudsters from Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health programs found gaping holes and expansive gray areas through which banned individuals slip to repeatedly bilk taxpayer-funded programs.
Private equity-backed Headlands Research heralded its covid-19 vaccine trials as a chance to boost participation among diverse populations, then it shuttered multiple sites that conducted them.
Private equity firms have shelled out almost $1 trillion to acquire nearly 8,000 health care businesses, in deals almost always hidden from federal regulators. The result: higher prices, lawsuits, and complaints about care.
Investors are putting money into everything from emergency room obstetrics units and dermatology practices to nursing homes and hospice care — from cradle to grave.
Hospitals, boosted by private equity-backed staffing companies, have embraced a new idea: the obstetrics emergency department. Often, it is just a triage room in the labor-and-delivery area, but it bills like the main emergency department.
Four Seasons Health Care collapsed after years of private equity investors rolling in one after another to buy its business, sell its real estate, and at times wrest multimillion-dollar profits from it through complex debt schemes. The deal-making failed to account for the true cost of senior care.
Two Missouri towns are without operating hospitals after private equity-backed Noble Health left both facilities mired in debt, lawsuits, and federal investigations. The hospitals’ new operator, Platinum Health, agreed to buy them in April for $2 and laid off the last employees in early September.