Vulture Capitalists Want to Flood the Health Care System With Cheap Medical Labor
Private equity firms have conspired to flood the emergency health care market with ER doctors in an effort to cut labor costs — in the midst of what patients will still experience as an acute physician shortage with declining standards of care.
While their wages are falling, doctors say private equity-imposed compensation schemes and staffing cuts are leading them to see more patients than they can handle. (Natanael Melchor / Unsplash)
A private equity–owned emergency room staffing firm cofounded by a wealthy Republican congressman has been openly hailing a coming “oversupply” of doctors, promising prospective investors that a surplus of emergency physicians — soon projected to reach nearly ten thousand — will drive doctors’ wages low enough to offset the haircut that health care reforms have imposed upon its profit margins.
The physician glut was highlighted in a recent pitch deck prepared by the cash-strapped Nashville ER staffing firm American Physician Partners (APP). The company, which operates ERs in 155 hospitals, has been trying — and failing — for months to raise $580 million to pay off creditors, including Representative Mark Green (R-TN), who holds somewhere between $5 million and $25 million of the company’s debt.
Like most of its competitors, APP has watched its profit margins and credit ratings sink since various laws banning surprise billing were enacted last year. While APP claims it never sent surprise bills to patients, it has also told its doctors in email exchanges reviewed by us that various laws banning the practice had resulted in a 50 percent drop in the company’s revenues from certain large insurers.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.