PE firms’ investments in health care deals soar

Private equity groups have invested about $1 trillion into nearly 8,000 health care transactions in the past decade, and some experts are pushing for more scrutiny of their increasing influence on the industry amid concern it may be causing higher medical bills and diminished quality of care, reports Becker’s Hospital Review. Because such investment groups typically invest less than $101 million, such transactions do not attract automatic antitrust reviews at the federal level, according to the report. Nevertheless, companies owned or managed by PE groups have agreed to pay fines of more than $500 million since 2014 in over 30 lawsuits under the False Claims Act.