This summer I made the mistake of going to a large dermatology practice with several locations because a dermatologist I had seen a few times before was unavailable. I had what turned out to be essentially contact dermatitis. The large corporate practice ended up billing almost $900 for this including an unnecessary biopsy. I assumed that this was simply a rogue practice, but this news story makes me see this in a new light. Apparently the field of dermatology has been identified as a lucrative profit center by P/E firms and these sort of dermatology practices are being built up to strip mine the out of control medical-insurance complex here in the US. The logical next step is for these equity-backed firms to use their capital to acquire the majority of dermatology practices in a region and be able to dictate pricing.

I'm sure that this area of medicine has been selected by equity firms because of the prevalence of cosmetic-related procedures that are inherently high-margin in this field. But there is so much money being sucked into this sector of the economy that this will encompass other types of medicine. The other area that seems to be active now is hospice care - the large insurer Anthem just bought a large palliative care provider this year. How this is not playing both sides of the trade kind of escapes me.

The whole health care sector is starting to resemble the payday loan market on a vast scale and with even less regulation. And with 2 profit-seeking players interested in shaking down the consumer in every transaction, not just one. Or, one player pretending to be two players for maximum profit.