Private equity investment can help independent doctors, health care quality, AIMPA says

It’s time for doctors, patients and policymakers to rethink some perceptions about private equity investment in health care, according to the American Independent Medical Practice Association (AIMPA).

In 2024, AIMPA commissioned consultant Avalere to study Medicare fee-for-service data about the effects of private equity investment in medical practices across five specialties: cardiology, gastroenterology, medical oncology, orthopedics, and urology.

There are some striking results, said Paul Berggreen, MD, AIMPA board chair and president. To start, physicians working with private-equity (PE) affiliated management services organizations (MSOs) have done a really good job controlling costs, promoting quality, and remaining independent, he said.

PE-affiliated medical practices are dwarfed by hospitals and corporate practice settings. Yet they have generated a huge amount of public attention – including legislative efforts to bar PE investment.

“I don’t completely understand the momentum in the national conversation saying that this is not a good model,” Berggreen said. “We have proven now with objective data that it is a really good model, and we also feel strongly that competition in the marketplace is a good thing.

“What we’re asking people in the legislatures, around the statehouses and on Capitol Hill: Don’t regulate us out of existence,” he said. “We feel that we are a very important segment of the health care ecosystem.”

In this video series, Berggreen discusses AIMPA, the study, and how private equity-affiliated MSOs can help independent practitioners. The full study, “Medicare Service Use and Expenditures Across Physician Practice Affiliation Models,” remains available online.