Early career radiologists must educate themselves about the perils of private equity’s increasing interest in the specialty, one such physician argued in an opinion piece published Wednesday.
Consolidation has taken hold of the profession in recent years, with corporate-backed players introducing practices to stock ownership, reduced base compensation, and conflicts of interest fueled by investors’ appetite for profit. Resident radiologist Jose Lopez, MD, MBA, urged his peers to familiarize themselves with such trends as they plot their career path in the coming years.
“Early career radiologist data point to growing concerns over this phenomenon's growing presence in radiology,” Lopez, with Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, wrote Jan. 13 in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. “Radiology trainees are encouraged to become more financially literate with respect to PE, as this model has the potential to disrupt the practice of radiology and the competitiveness of future talent pools.”
Lopez cited a March 2020 study from the Journal of American College of Radiology, which found that nearly 90% of early career radiologists believe corporatization is harming the specialty. He’s previously attended recruitment events, in which trainees are enticed with a career in corporate imaging, “without being informed of the downside.”
For the writer, these negatives could include the threat of bankruptcy due to high debt loads, the corresponding possibility that stocks never fully vest, and loss of clinical autonomy. On the flipside, corporate practice may come with some benefits, such as streamlined back-office operations and more time to focus on subspecialty-specific functions, he noted.
Ultimately, it’s on the individual to determine whether they want to be part of an independence practice, a radiologist-operated coalition, or a private equity-backed operation, the writer concluded.
“Healthcare policy and law will ultimately decide the fate of this practice model—one that promotes efficiency and elimination of waste in our healthcare system or one that exploits healthcare access for profit at the expense of patients and physicians,” he concluded. “For the time being, radiology trainees would be well-advised to work on developing the financial literacy necessary to make the best-informed decision about this burgeoning practice model. Our profession and the quality of future radiologists depend on that understanding.”
You can read the rest of the “Education Corner” piece here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.