Private equity firms have acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers across the U.S. over the past decade, with nearly 80% of those acquisitions occurring over a four-year span, according to a new study from researchers at the Brown University Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research.

Study author Yashaswini Singh, a health economist at Brown’s School of Public Health, said the work highlights how financial firms are rapidly moving into a sensitive area of health care without much public scrutiny or data on where this is happening or why.

“The big takeaway is that there is yet another segment of health care that has emerged as potentially profitable to private equity investors and it is very distinct from where we have traditionally known investors to go, so the potential for harm can be a lot more serious,” Singh said. “We’re also dealing with children who are largely insured by Medicaid programs, so if private equity increases the intensity of care, what we’re really looking at are impacts to state Medicaid budgets down the road.”

The findings of the analysis were published in JAMA Pediatrics and offer one of the first national assessments of private equity’s growing role in autism therapies and services. Autism diagnoses among U.S. children have risen sharply in recent years, nearly tripling between 2011 and 2022, and the condition has been in the national spotlight amid political debate falsely linking autism to childhood vaccines.

  • postcapitalism@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    4 days ago

    Based on reported experiences, privately run for-profit centers are maximizing profit at the expense of providing appropriate care. They do so by:

    1. Pushing for maximum weekly hours they can charge public/private insurers based on coverage (without deferment to child/family needs)

    2. Using in some cases remote/foreign low cost labor for diagnosis / non-care provision, while charging US rates

    3. Aggressive sales tactics

    4. Paying high wages to new graduates, but with a low ceiling on wages and high case load, leading to rotating care to the detriment of building a strong relationship with patients

    Most of the providers are good people who mean well and want to help children. The problem is there is a lack of available services and centers for these families, so if the model weren’t so profit centric at the expense of disabled children the added investment would be welcome

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    7·
    4 days ago

    Private equity and anything healthcare related should never be together in the same sentence unless it’s to say that private equity should never be in healthcare