I recently had the opportunity to collaborate with Gretchen Morgenson of NBC News. In 2002, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of Wall Street. I assisted her on a piece she was doing on the influence of private equity firms on healthcare and housing. A private equity firm owns Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center. The piece can be read here.
In 2016, the Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center here in the area was acquired by Duke Lifepoint Healthcare. Duke Lifepoint is in turn owned by Apollo Global Management. Apollo Global Management is a private equity firm with $25.4 billion in assets. They also own ADT and Chuck E Cheese. A private equity is a firm that manages properties with the intent of increasing their value before selling them.
Clinical Care in Cambria and Somerset Counties
The main objective of Lifepoint Health is to increase profitability in the Conemaugh Medical Center. Morgenson says that this effort at profitability comes at the expense of patients and healthcare workers. In the graphs above we can see that in Cambria County there were 1,440 individuals for every primary care physician (PCP) while in Somerset County there were 2,730 individuals for every PCP. Both counties, which Conemaugh serves, are getting worse for this measure according to County Health Rankings.
The City of Johnstown was in Act 47 protection since 1992 for financially distressed municipalities. When Duke Lifepoint took over Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, the medical center started paying taxes to the city and state due to their new for profit status. In 2023, Johnstown finally stopped receiving Act 47 protection. There are 2 upcoming U.S. Senate investigations of Duke Lifepoint.
The larger issue Morgenson and I discussed is how other supposed for nonprofit medical centers like UPMC behave like for profit entities. Their CEO Jeffrey Romoff received a $6 million salary, had a personal chef, and had a personal jet. Private equity firms in healthcare are a symptom of a much larger disease.