As private equity ownership continues to be a hot topic in healthcare, a recent Becker's LinkedIn poll revealed that 50% of the 778 respondents feel that private equity ownership is having a "mostly negative" impact on hospitals.
Twenty-eight percent of respondents replied that private equity ownership has a "somewhat negative" impact on hospitals, with 17% finding it "somewhat positive" and 6% "mostly positive."
Becker's has no insights on respondents' organizations or roles.
Financially troubled Dallas-based Steward Health Care is working to sell off its 31 hospitals and physician group, Stewardship Health. The health system's landlord is Medical Properties Trust, one of the world's largest owners of hospital real estate.
Steward, which filed for bankruptcy May 6, has also received significant backlash from lawmakers.
Most recently, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey shared that the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote the week of July 22 to conduct an investigation into Steward and subpoena its CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD.
"After working with Steward over the last eight years, my humble opinion is that private equity has a parasitic relationship with hospitals," Stan Kobylanski, clinical sales manager for Intuitive, a technology company, said in the comments section of Becker's LinkedIn poll. "There are so many talented surgeons and hospital leaders at Steward in Massachusetts but private equity has bled them dry of the proper resources to effectively do their job."
However, while many healthcare and political leaders might paint PE in a negative light, a July 8 PitchBook report found that PE investment in healthcare is "vastly overrated," with less than 4% of the U.S. healthcare provider revenue ecosystem featuring providers backed by PE.
The report also found that more than half of physicians and over 70% of all employed physicians are hospital employed, meaning that physician employment growth is primarily PE driven.