Hospital - and private equity – affiliated specialty physicians negotiate higher prices than independent physicians

Hospital - and private equity – affiliated specialty physicians negotiate higher prices than independent physicians
Health Affairs; by Alexander P. Philips, Nandita Radhakrishnan, Christopher M. Whaley, Yashaswini Singh; 10/25
Hospital and private equity (PE) consolidation in health care is altering the physician practice landscape, with more than three-quarters of physicians employed by these corporate entities as of 2023. We examined practice affiliation patterns for specialist physicians and those patterns’ association with commercial prices for cardiology and gastroenterology services... Hospital-affiliated specialists negotiated prices that were 16.3 percent higher for cardiology procedures and 20.7 percent higher for gastroenterology procedures compared with specialists in independent practices. PE-affiliated specialists negotiated prices that were 6.0 percent higher for cardiology and 10.0 percent higher for gastroenterology procedures.