Acceleration of merger and acquisition activity
Irving Levin Associates, Inc.
The increase in M&A activity (merger and acquisition) was spread across both the technology and services segments of health care. The $38.1 billion in health care technology transactions represented an 87% jump from the first quarter, while the $23.1 billion in health care services acquisitions was almost triple the dollar volume in the first quarter. In the health care services segment, long-term care and hospital acquisitions continue to dominate both the number of transactions and the dollar volume, with physician medical group acquisitions also very active as health care market participants try to get ready for the increase in Accountable Care Organizations. In the technology M&A segment, the number of e-health transactions has been growing and has averaged over 20 acquisitions per quarter for the past four quarters. “The fact that the Supreme Court decision validated most aspects of the Affordable Care Act means that providers and payers will be consolidating to be stronger players in the new market. Coincidence or not, there was a flurry of announced M&A transactions in the week after the decision,” stated Stephen Monroe, Partner at Irving Levin Associates and editor of The Health Care M&A Report. http://www.levinassociates.com/pr2012/pr1207mamq2
By Don McCanne MD
Following the Supreme Court decision to uphold the fundamentals of the Affordable Care Act, merger and acquisition activities have accelerated within the health care industry. Is that what we’ve come to? An industry in which participants jockey for market position? Does anyone care about the patient anymore?
The answer to the last question is yes. But a health care environment created by MBAs cannot reproduce the professional milieu in which the patient is placed at the pinnacle. Corporations may have some of the same rights as people, but they can never have an inner being that understands, feels, and lives with empathy and caring like the professionals dedicated to the healing arts.
Corporations do have the power, and the money, and their rights, but caring isn’t on their list.
