Private Equity Acquisition Effect on the Most Common Urologic Procedures

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Urology Practice Management
• Healthcare Policy

Background:

• Private equity (PE) investment in healthcare is increasing.
• Understanding the impact of PE on clinical practice patterns is crucial.
• Urology has seen significant PE acquisition activity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess how private equity acquisition influences the volume of common outpatient urologic procedures.
• To compare procedure and visit volumes before and after PE acquisition.

Main Methods:

• Utilized financial databases to identify PE acquisitions of urology practices in 2016 and 2018.
• Extracted yearly Medicare data (2013-2022) on office visits and procedure volumes per provider.
• Employed comparative interrupted time series analysis to evaluate changes in volume.

Main Results:

• Complex cystometrogram (CMG) volumes increased by 10.2 per physician-year post-acquisition in 2018.
• Post-acquisition trends differed for several procedures (cystoscopy, PVR, prostate biopsy, CMG, uroflow) in 2018 compared to controls.
• Office visit volumes for new and follow-up patients remained largely unaffected by PE acquisition in 2016 and 2018.

Conclusions:

• Private equity acquisition demonstrates variable effects on urologic procedure volumes, contingent on the specific procedure.
• The long-term consequences of private equity ownership models in urology are not yet fully understood.