Physician Medical Group Sector Heats Up

Ten months into the year, and only two healthcare sectors have posted gains compared with 2015 totals. On the technology side, it’s eHealth, where deal volume is up 10% through the end of October, to 139 transactions. On the services side, it’s Physician Medical Groups. Deal volume now stands at 102 transactions, a 13% increase over last year’s 90 deals. (See chart below.) The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) is one factor behind the increase in physician practice acquisitions. Although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services eased some rules regarding data reporting periods, timing and payment options, the law still calls for smaller practices to have digital... Read More »

AmSurg Finds a Partner for $6.7 Billion

Last fall, AmSurg Corp. (NASDAQ: AMSG) made an unsolicited bid for TeamHealth Holdings (NYSE: TMH), to the tune of $7.8 billion. At the time, TeamHealth was working its way through its own merger with IPC Healthcare, for $1.6 billion. It snubbed AmSurg’s offer as too low, and went on to complete its IPC acquisition on November 23, 2015. Analysts who follow the Physician Medical Group sector generally praised AmSurg’s offer from a strategic perspective, as it would create one of the largest national providers of outsourced physician services to health systems. Alas, AmSurg withdrew its offer on November 2. For the record, AmSurg provides ambulatory and physician services in the... Read More »

MEDNAX and Team Health Keep Growing

TeamHealth Holdings (NYSE: TMH) is slowly getting back in its M&A groove, after the $1.6 billion acquisition of IPC Healthcare in August 2015. The company announced its second deal in 2016 on June 1, compared with four transactions announced in the first half of 2015. The latest target is Tri-City Emergency Medical Group in Oceanside, California. Tri-City Emergency Medical Group’s 25 physicians provide emergency medical care in north San Diego, treating approximately 70,000 patients annually through staffing and management of the Tri-City Medical Center emergency department. Financial terms were not disclosed. Meanwhile, MEDNAX (NYSE: MD) is keeping up with its 2015 acquisition... Read More »

Acquisition Outlook for Doc Groups: Wait and See

2015 was a very good year for acquisitions in the Physician Medical Group (PMG) sector. With 88 transactions in total, deal volume was up 47% compared with 2014. The sector’s largest deal, Team Health’s (NYSE: TMH) $1.6 billion acquisition of IPC Healthcare, combined two of the sector’s top acquirers (see chart below). That deal closed in November 2015. Since then, things have gone very quiet in the PMG sector. The fourth quarter of 2015 closed with 22 deals for doc groups, beating the third quarter’s 19 deals and Q4:14’s 17 deals. So far this year, only five transactions have been made public, compared with 12 in the same period a year ago. At least a portion... Read More »

Team Health Closes on IPC Healthcare Acquisition

It’s official. On November 23rd, Team Health Holdings (NSE: TMH) completed its $1.6 billion acquisition of IPC Healthcare, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: IPCM), a national acute hospitalist and post-acute provider organization. The combination creates a national physician services organization that will serve approximately 2,000 post-acute facilities across 28 states. As a result of the completion of the transaction, IPC’s common stock ceased trading on the NASDAQ exchange. Up until the last minute, IPC was still acquiring physician medical groups. On November 13, it announced a deal for Amity Health, LLC, a post-acute practice in Wichita, Kansas and on November 19, it added Heartland... Read More »