Gary W. Herschman and Conor F. Murphy, Health Care Mergers and Acquisitions attorneys, in the firm’s Newark office, co-authored an article in Medical Economics, titled “Navigating Primary Care Partnerships: Strategic Considerations and Transaction Trends.”
Following is an excerpt:
Interest remains robust for investment in the primary care space by private equity sponsors and other strategic partners. The proliferation of medical practice transactions involving a sale, merger, investment or other partnership overall has been increasing throughout the last decade, and the focus on primary care in particular is at the top of list for investors, especially in most recent years.
The importance of primary care professionals – to manage a patient’s overall health, to reduce complications and to provide preventive care – is underscored by many factors, including:
- Accelerating attention to, momentum of investment in, and more recent evolution of, value-based care and reimbursement programs, such as risk-based initiatives, bundled payments and enhanced quality and outcome analyses, as payers, providers, employers and other participants in the health care industry have developed more enhanced value-based capabilities; and
- Increasing financial incentives for implementing such programs to lower the overall cost of quality care, such as catching illnesses (e.g., cancer, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes) early and avoiding the need for inpatient and other expensive care, and emphasis on reducing hospital readmissions.
These factors position primary care physicians more than ever at the epicenter of the future of medicine. Additionally, the shortage of primary care professionals, which had been persistent in the industry for some time and has recently become even more pronounced, translates to an even higher demand for such primary care providers.
