1 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A U G U S T 2 0 1 8
A
fter years of mar-
ket dominance,
ASC management
companies are facing stiff
competition from physi-
cian practice management
(PPM) companies owned
by private equity investors
looking to acquire and
consolidate single-special-
ty practices and their affili-
ated surgery centers. It will
be interesting to see which ASC transaction model wins out — the
traditional ASC management company joint venture (JV) that pre-
serves physicians' direct ownership in their ASC, or the PPM platform
that views the ASC as a small piece of a roll-up strategy and elimi-
nates surgeons as direct owners.
The ASC industry was born from physician discontent with the hospi-
tal setting, more lenient regulatory laws and an emphasis on lower cost
outpatient care. Traditional ASC management companies structured
thier core business model through JVs with physician partners, harness-
ing the physicians' entrepreneurial spirit and adopting a partnership
approach. Today, publicly traded companies or private equity funds have
acquired many of these "traditional" ASC companies. In the last 5 years
alone:
• Bain Capital acquired a controlling interest in Surgery Partners
• Envision Healthcare merged with AmSurg
Dueling ASC Ownership Models
Can traditional ASC management companies compete with today's PPMs?
Legal Update
Danielle E. Golino
• INVESTMENT STRATEGY Which transaction model will win out — the tradition-
al ASC joint venture or the physician practice management platform?
