Published by ImagingBiz
Marked by plenty of merger/acquisition activity, 2013 was a more tumultuous year in the imaging industry than anticipated, according to Todd Sorensen, CVA, a partner with health-care valuation and advisory company VMG Health. Experts anticipated that transaction activity would slow following the bull market of 2012, but the downshift didn’t arrive on schedule. “On the radiology-group side, the activity has continued apace; on the imaging-center side, it hasn’t slowed as much as we had anticipated at this time last year,” he says.
Though unusually numerous transactions continue to occur, the nature of those transactions is finally shifting as providers respond to health-care reform and its ramifications. “Hospitals have been eager to take advantage of the differential in imaging reimbursement on the commercial managed-care side, and that play drove a lot of transactions in 2012 and 2013,” Sorensen says.
He adds, “While we continue to see the rate differential drive transactions, we increasingly see more progressive hospital systems considering joint-venture opportunities. Many of the industry participants I’ve spoken with believe that whatever happens with the government’s initiatives (such as exchanges and accountable-care organization), providers and private payors are going to pursue bundled pricing and risk-sharing arrangements aggressively .”
