Here is a nice article about the Capitol Forum’s Health Care Competition Conference at the National Press Club recently. It’s called Private Equity, For-Profit Interests Hurt Medicine, Conference Speakers Say, and centers on a discussion with Dr. Mitch Li, a friend of the DPC world, who runs Take Medicine Back. Here are the highlights:
- Li doesn’t blame the pandemic. Rather, he blames “the consolidation and opportunism” of private equity firms, which have taken advantage of the situation COVID created — struggling smaller hospitals and practices became even more vulnerable, while the flow of government dollars, such as CARES ACT funding,opens in a new tab or window increased, he noted.
- Marco Fernandez, MD, president of Midwest Anesthesia Partners in Arlington Heights, Illinois, said he and the over 30 physicians he works with were “blindsided” after losing a couple of contracts to private-equity owned groups
- Hayden Rooke-Ley, JD, of Healthcare for All Oregon, pointed out that historically, states — through legislation, attorneys general, or state medical boards — instituted bans on the “corporate practice of medicine” (CPOM) decades ago. But a growing number of exemptions and “smart lawyers” have essentially gutted those bans, he said.
Why am I writing this? Well, I believe DINOs will do the same thing for us. My crystal ball says they will try to buy up as many DPC practices as possible and then cut them to the bone. They will hijack the name, change DPC as we know it, and the results will be the same thing Mitch Li is fighting against above.
Am I being too paranoid?
Time will tell.