Hospital ratings dive and medical errors rise when private equity firms are in charge.
Private equity firms are increasingly buying hospitals across the US, and when they do, patients suffer, according to two separate reports. Specifically, the equity firms cut corners, slash services, lay off staff, lower quality of care, take on substantial debt, and reduce charity care, leading to lower ratings and more medical errors, the reports collectively find.
Last week, the financial watchdog organization Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) released a report delving into the state of two of the nation’s largest hospital systems, Lifepoint and ScionHealth—both owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Through those two systems, Apollo runs 220 hospitals in 36 states, employing around 75,000 people.
The report found that some of Apollo’s hospitals were among the worst in their respective states, based on a ranking by The Lown Institute Hospital Index. The index ranks hospitals and health systems based on health equity, value, and outcomes, PESP notes. The hospitals also have dismal readmission rates and government rankings. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ranks hospitals on a one- to five-star system, with the national average of 3.2 stars overall and about 30 percent of hospitals at two stars or below. Apollo’s overall average is 2.8 stars, with nearly 40 percent of hospitals at two stars or below.
This is a whole other world of harm. Imagine if Jordan Belfort was crafty enough to buy private practices and merge them/make them “more efficient”
No, that’s exactly the harm I’m talking about.
Healthcare can’t be a capitalist industry without causing immense harm to the population.
I’m just saying this is a huge step beyond for-profit healthcare
This was always the future for for-profit healthcare, and they’ve been dumping a lot of money into insuring it happenes.
I sat in an AI/ML training program with 3 hospital execs who were giddy about the prospect of using it to deny unprofitable medical care.
Yup, the existing system that just overcharged for everything at least provided adequate care.
Private equity firms are just cancer for any business as their entire approach is to run anything they buy into the ground for short term profits. Vulture capitalism.
Yeah exactly. They’re designed to inevitably end the business as they extract every red cent on the way out.