Category: Patients for Profit

Private Equity Sees the Billions in Eye Care as Firms Target High-Profit Procedures

As private equity groups are swarming into aging America’s eye care, the consolidation is costing the U.S. health care system and patients more money.

Buy and Bust: Collapse of Private Equity-Backed Rural Hospitals Mired Employees in Medical Bills

The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.

Hospices Have Become Big Business for Private Equity Firms, Raising Concerns About End-of-Life Care

Private equity firms are seeing opportunities for profit in hospice care, once the domain of nonprofit organizations. The investment companies are transforming the industry — and might be jeopardizing patient care — in the process.

Buy and Bust: When Private Equity Comes for Rural Hospitals

Noble Health swept into two small Missouri towns promising to save their hospitals. Instead, workers and vendors say it stopped paying bills and government inspectors found it put patients at risk. Within two years — after taking millions in federal covid relief and big administrative fees — it locked the doors.

Misinformation Clouds America’s Most Popular Emergency Contraception

At a moment when half of U.S. states stand poised to outlaw or sharply curtail abortion services, the nation’s most popular emergency contraception brand rests in the unlikely stewardship of two private equity firms.

Despite a First-Ever ‘Right-to-Repair’ Law, There’s No Easy Fix for Wheelchair Users

Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform.

Betting on ‘Golden Age’ of Colonoscopies, Private Equity Invests in Gastro Docs

An aging population in need of regular cancer screenings has driven private equity companies, seeking profits, to invest in many gastroenterology practices and set up aggressive billing practices. Steep prices on routine tests are one consequence for patients.