More practices looking to be acquired

Economic and health reform uncertainty have more primary care practices considering selling to hospitals, according to discussion at the 2009 Medical Group Management Association annual conference in Denver last month.

In a session on sustaining a private practice, Marc Halley, president and CEO of The Halley Consulting Group LLC in Columbus, Ohio, said hospitals and medical systems are pursuing practice acquisitions more aggressively.

Several attendees expressed interest in selling or said that hospitals had contacted them about acquisition.

“We’re having several clinics that are approaching us (about acquisition),” says an administrator at a hospital system in Dallas. “Usually it’s because of the cost of EMR transition they’re going to have to make. A lot of the clinics got quotes of anywhere from $400,000 to over $1 million.”