Private equity’s footprint in women’s health care
Dr. Farley estimates that he has helped set up OBEDs – including Colorado’s first in 2013 – in at least 30 hospitals. He’s aware of hospitals that claim they have OBEDs when the only change they’ve made is to have an ob.gyn. on site round the clock.
“You can’t just hang out a shingle and say: ‘We have an OBED.’ It’s an investment on the part of the hospital,” he said. That means having, among other things, a separate entrance from the rest of the labor-and-delivery department, clear signage inside and outside the hospital, and a separate waiting room. Some hospitals he has worked with have invested millions of dollars in upgrading facilities for their OBED.
Private equity firms often promise more efficient management, plus investment in technology and facilities that could improve patient care or satisfaction. In some parts of health care, that could really help, said Ambar La Forgia, PhD, who researches health care management at the University of California, Berkeley, and is studying private equity investment in fertility care. But Dr. La Forgia said that in much of health care, gauging whether such firms are truly maintaining or improving the quality of care is difficult.
“Private equity is about being able to extract some sort of value very quickly,” Dr. La Forgia said. “And in health care, when prices are so opaque and there’s so much lack of transparency, a lot of those impacts on the prices are eventually going to fall on the patient.”
It’s changing circumstances for doctors, too. Michelle Barhaghi, MD, a Colorado obstetrician, said OBEDs may make sense in busy, urban hospitals with lots of patients who did not get prenatal care. But now they’re cropping up everywhere. “From a doctor standpoint, none of us want these jobs because now we’re like a resident again, where we have to see every single patient that walks through that door,” said Dr. Barhaghi, rather than triaging many cases on the phone with a nurse.
Still, private equity is continuing its advance into women’s health care.
Indeed, Dr. Barhaghi said private equity came knocking on her door earlier this year: Women’s Care Enterprises, backed by private equity company BC Partners, wanted to know whether she would consider selling her practice. She said “no.”
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.