The Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, a nonprofit organization focused on healthcare policy, raised concerns over General Catalyst's recently announced plans to acquire Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health and its intent to convert the health system and insurance plan into a for-profit entity.
"Private equity is focused on profits," Twila Brase, RN, co-founder and president of the CCHF, said in a Jan. 22 news release from the organization. "Physicians and hospitals are focused on patients — or they should be. The problem for patients today is that the mission of medicine has been taken over by the business of healthcare."
The nonprofit said this acquisition — and similar private equity acquisitions in healthcare — are furthering a "corporate takeover of medicine" and derailing physicians from prioritizing providing quality care, according to the release.
In the release, the CCHF urged providers to consider leaving practices managed by private equity firms to better align with patient-focused medicine.