The New Republic recently ran a story about how private equity firms buy hospitals, extract the capital, and then walk away from the remains:
The Private Equity Firms That Gobble Up Hospitals and Spit Them Out
Looking to turn a quick profit, the firms buy medical facilities and then unload them just a few years later, often leaving devastation in their wake.
The article, written by Sara Degregorio, profiles the death throes of Crozier-Chester Medical Center in Pennsylvania, once a vital and respected general hospital. Purchased in 2010 by Prospect Medical Holdings (in turn owned by Leonard Green Associates), the new owners cut staff, didn’t maintain equipment or purchase new equipment, sold the property off to a real estate company and leased the building back to the CCMC, which had previously owned the property and buildings outright.
“When Leonard Green exited Prospect Medical in 2021, the Rhode Island attorney general investigated and found that the ownership group “realized hundreds of millions of dollars and would leave behind a system that is highly leveraged, that is, where liabilities greatly exceed assets.” Prospect Medical continued to own Crozer-Chester until the company closed that hospital and others amid the company’s bankruptcy in 2025, leaving residents with nowhere to go for care.”
Read more about other hospitals closed by Prospect Medical Holdings.
