Follow Dr. McLeod’s Lead
Private equity (PE) is reshaping healthcare—and not for the better. During a recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Town Hall, AAEM member Dr. Shenequa McLeod took a stand alongside FTC Chair Lina Khan and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, exposing how consolidation is harming both physicians and patients alike. Now, it’s your turn to join the fight and share your experiences with the impact of PE on patient care.
Watch Dr. McLeod’s powerful statement (starting at 25:03) from the FTC Town Hall in the video below:
Take Action
The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) frequently receives requests from various government agencies and media outlets regarding the impact of PE on the practice of emergency medicine.
In an effort to respond to these requests with real-life examples, AAEM is inviting you to share your first-hand experience(s) with the detrimental impact of PE on healthcare. We believe that sharing these experiences will have a significant impact, as many regulators and news agencies believe that physicians benefit from this arrangement (rather than being exploited by it).
Share Your ExperienceWhat To Share
The experience you choose to share does not need to be long or referenced. We encourage you to speak from the heart and suggest commenting on any of the following areas you feel comfortable with:
- The dominance of PE in emergency medicine or your area of the country;
- The financial implications and effects on patients (i.e., blinding to what is billed in your name, pressures to up-code);
- The suppression of wages (i.e., pay and hour cuts);
- The effects on working conditions (i.e., productivity metrics, forced supervision of non-physician providers);
- The inability to advocate for patients and the denial of due process;
- The loss of contracts due to joint ventures or cross-subsidy issues (i.e., emergency department and hospitalist bundling); and
- The inability to compete for emergency department contracts (i.e., non-interference clauses and non-compete agreements).
Sample Experience
The example below is illustrative of the type of experiences we are looking to collect:
I am an emergency medicine physician who pursued my field to help patients during their most vulnerable moments. Changes in recent years have made it difficult, if not impossible, for me to deliver high-quality care to my patients while avoiding significant financial harm to them. I am not allowed to view what is billed or collected in my name without risking retaliation by my employers, as my contract required me to bypass my due process rights as a condition of employment.
The field of emergency medicine has gone through rapid consolidation over the past decade, now with an estimated 50% of emergency medicine physicians employed by private equity-owned entities that prioritize overleveraged debt and corporate profits over patient care. The emergency department is effectively the nation’s only form of universal healthcare due to EMTALA, a government mandate that requires, but does not fund, all emergency patients to be seen regardless of ability to pay.
Corporate interests have exploited this inelastic market for profit in detestable ways, cutting staffing and replacing qualified emergency medicine physicians with cheaper, less qualified personnel while driving the out-of-network billing crisis by suing indigent patients and garnishing their wages. I did not become a physician to put desperate, unsuspecting patients into debt.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call AAEM at (800) 884-2236 or email us.