Title Information
Title
Private Equity Rollups of Physician Practices: Evidence from Gastroenterology
Type of Resource (primo)
technical_reports
Abstract
The competitive effects of emerging “platform and add-on” consolidation strategies, which often escape regulatory scrutiny, remain understudied. We examine whether private equity (PE) rollups affect prices through changes in local market power, PE-specific mechanisms, or both, using a difference-in-differences design and novel hand-compiled data on platform and add-on acquisitions by 7 PE firms in gastroenterology. We find that both initial platform and add-on acquisitions increase prices, with add-on acquisitions generating larger effects. Within-market add-ons, which increase acquiring firms' market share by approximately 14 percentage points, raise prices by 10%. Cross-market acquisitions in geographically distinct markets, which by construction leave local market concentration unchanged, raise prices by 3%. Cross-market price increases reflect the diffusion of platform pricing strategies, whereby acquired practices rapidly converge to the negotiated rates established by their PE-backed platforms. We find no evidence of changes to patient outcomes or patient selection. Overall, our findings suggest that regulatory frameworks focused exclusively on local market concentration may understate the cumulative competitive effects of rollup acquisitions, with implications for antitrust enforcement and the ongoing policy debate over whether PE-specific regulatory treatment is warranted.
Name
Name Part
Yashaswini Singh
Role
Role Term (marcrelator) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut")
Author
Name
Name Part
Christopher M. Whaley
Role
Role Term (marcrelator) (authorityURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators", valueURI="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut")
Author
Origin Information
Date Created
2026
Subject (Local)
Topic
private equity
Subject (Local)
Topic
Physician Practices
Subject (Local)
Topic
Rollups
Genre
Working Paper
Access Condition: use and reproduction
All rights reserved
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
All Rights Reserved
Identifier: DOI
10.26300/gxsx-7y24