Leading senators from both major political parties in the United States recently launched an investigation. … [+]
Influential U.S. senators are the latest to launch investigations into private equity’s growing role in owning and running everything from hospitals and health systems to doctor’s offices and clinics.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter last week to Ascension Illinois, a nonprofit that runs 10 hospitals in the Chicago area, that he wants to know how private equity is affecting patients, the quality and outcomes of care.
Sen. Grassley’s investigation comes amid a growing number of congressional committee investigations, including one by Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Retirement Security. As The Washington Post reported last month, Markey is “focusing on the hundreds of billions of dollars that private equity has spent to buy up doctors’ offices, hospitals, laboratories and nursing homes across the country.”
Grassley and Markey’s investigation comes less than three months after the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services launched a “cross-government investigation into the impact of corporate greed in health care” in March.
Sen. Grassley’s investigation, which has been gaining attention in Chicago, said in a letter to Ascension Illinois that he is looking into Ascension’s decision to outsource its hospital doctors to a for-profit company called SCP Health, which is backed by a “Canadian private equity-backed staffing firm.”
“My office has received allegations that the outsourcing of staff includes medical directors, physicians, nurses and physician assistants,” Grassley’s letter said, referring to positions that Ascension hired directly.
“The whistleblower provided my office with information regarding proposed changes to staffing and procedures that would be made if SCP Health were to assume management and outsource hospital medical functions,” Grassley’s letter said.
“If implemented, these models could impact the quality of patient care, increase provider burdens to unsustainable levels, and raise questions about whether adequate internal controls are in place to protect patient information and ensure billing accuracy,” Grassley’s letter added. “I am concerned that if staffing plans are implemented as communicated to my office, hospital physicians will be burdened with significantly more patients. For example, based on records provided to my office, the SCP model would change the average number of patients a hospital physician sees per day from 16-19 to 22-30.”
Meanwhile, Ascension Illinois confirmed Friday that it received Grassley’s letter and said it was working with the senator’s office.
“Providing compassionate, timely care to the patients we serve is at the heart of everything we do,” an Ascension Illinois spokesperson said. “Effective June 1, 2024, SCP Health, a clinical services provider of emergency medicine, hospital medicine and intensive care, will begin providing hospital care to our acute care hospitals, leveraging the majority of the providers who currently serve these facilities. We have received Senator Grassley’s letter and look forward to sharing information about how the arrangement with SCP Health will benefit our patients, our community and our mission.”
It’s unclear how the senators’ investigation will proceed, but Markey’s office is already drafting legislation called the “Wealth over Health” Act, which would impact private equity’s future involvement in the health care sector.
“My Health Wealth Bill aims to protect patients and health care providers by requiring private equity firms to set aside funds to protect access to care, eliminating tax incentives that incentivize companies to strip hospital assets, and giving workers and patients a greater say in seating reviews and blocks that affect patient care, access and safety,” Markey told The Washington Post in an interview.
