Derm drama, PE scrambles to exit hospitals, How much candy is too much?
It’s Thursday, and it’s also that time of year in which practicing self-control takes on a whole new meaning.
I’m talking about the homemade pie up for grabs in the office kitchen and the Halloween candy purchased “just in case” trick-or-treaters came knocking at my Brooklyn apartment last night.
Is 10 a.m. too early if it gives me the sugar rush I need to make my latest deadline?
Moving on. I want to quickly highlight a New York Times story that ran a few days ago. The story was about a research paper that discussed private equity’s entrance into the dermatology field, but was taken down from a medical journal following complaints from PE execs and dermatologists.
According to the NYT story, the now-retracted paper said PE is acquiring “outlier” practices that perform an unusually high number of well-reimbursed procedures and bill high amounts to Medicare. It also noted objections to a conclusion in the paper that said influential leaders are being recruited to work for and promote derm groups backed by PE.
The fact that the paper was outright removed from the publication is puzzling in the first place.
And in terms of the issue of whether profits compromise patient care — isn’t that a common debate when it comes to any medical practice group or specialty? Lastly, it seems obvious to me that sponsors would headhunt for the most influential leaders. After all, everyone talks about human capital as the most important factor of a target investment.
What do you make of this, derm fanatics? I know there are a lot of you. If you’ve got the paper, I’d love to read it. Please send it my way at springle@buyoutsinsider.com, or reach out and let’s discuss.
Calling all contrarian investors
As some of you know, I’ve been writing about durable medical equipment trends and activity in recent weeks.
Over the past few days, that includes a provider of respiratory-therapy products and services in the market. And there’s also One Homecare – which, among other things, has a DME component and just selected a private equity partner. (Nautic, btw, quietly bought a competitor of One Homecare recently.)
SUBSCRIBE to get the Healthcare Wire in your inbox every Thursday morning. It’s free!
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try and sign in again. If the problem persists, please
email: subscriptions@peimedia.com.