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Changing practice ownership 2022 MAPPED: Trends - Green Cross buy-ups, GP joint ventures
Changing practice ownership 2022 MAPPED: Trends - Green Cross buy-ups, GP joint ventures
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Here at New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa we are on our summer break! While we're gone, check out Summer Hiatus: Stories we think deserve to be read again! This article was first published on 26 October 2022.
Did you check out all the new dots on our updated practice ownership map? If not, Fiona Cassie suggests its worth taking a look and reading about the trends
Apologies - we are having problems with this map appearing on Tablet and Desktop - we are looking into this - Editor
Every effort has been made to ensure these details were accurate at the time of publications - 26 October 2022. Please contact us if any updates are necessary
Apologies - we are having problems with this map appearing on Tablet and Desktop - we are looking into this - Editor
Every effort has been made to ensure these details were accurate at the time of publications - 26 October 2022. Please contact us if any updates are necessary
Purchases by corporate and other ownership networks have stepped up in the past 18 months with more than 40 medical centres going fully or partially into network ownership. That is about three times the number of transactions that went through in the 2020 calendar year.
The biggest player has been Green Cross, which added 15 centres (13 practices and two satellite clinics) to its stable since New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa last updated our map in early 2021.
Eleven other networks are responsible for the other purchases. Some of the smaller practices purchased have been merged or absorbed into existing centres.
Three networks have established new joint-venture practices. These are Third Age and Phoenix Healthcare’s new Christchurch practice; a Very Low Cost Access Invercargill practice established by WellSouth and local iwi; and East Health Trust and Care Group’s ambitious Highbrook Medical start-up in Auckland.
The result is that there are 40 new “dots” on our map representing more practices and clinics now owned by corporate and other ownership networks, including ownership arms of PHOs.
That brings the number of network-owned medical centres on our map up to about 220 – more than double the 106 we had on the first iteration of our map in 2014.
And more than a million patients are now enrolled with practices fully or partially owned by a dozen networks.
For this map update, we asked networks for details on how many of the practices added to their networks were joint ventures and, in particular, how many of the practices still had GP shareholders.
It appears about a third of the medical centres (69 of the 220) in corporate or other networks’ stables still have GP shareholders with skin in the game, including some with nurse and practice manager shareholders.
The percentage may be higher as Tāmaki Health, owner of just under 50 medical centres, declined to share information on jointventure practices.
Christchurch specialist GP Angus Chambers, a co-owner of one of Tāmaki’s two recent purchases, Riccarton Clinic & After-Hours Medical Centre, says Tāmaki bought a 50 per cent stake in the Christchurch practice and urgent-care centre last year.
At Green Cross Health, 23 of its 57 centres are joint ventures with GPs or other practice stakeholders – with eight of those new partnerships from purchases in the past 18 months.
Half of South Link Health’s network practices are joint ventures, with GPs owning 33 to 90 per cent stakes.
Meanwhile, nearly all of the practices in both the Better Health and OmniHealth networks are joint ventures with GPs and other clinic stakeholders.
Our interactive map (online at nzdoctor.co.nz) also shows a further 130 or so practices owned by charitable trusts, iwi, Te Whatu Ora or educational institutions, making a total of just short of 350 mapped medical centres.
Te Whatu Ora media coordinator Sanjana George says 950 practices have contracts with a PHO. In early 2019, 985 practices were contracted.
CORPORATE/PRIVATE PRIMARY CARE NETWORKS
Green Cross Health
Owner: Listed on the NZX, multiple shareholders
57 medical centres (up 15)
Enrolled patients: 345,000
Tāmaki Health
Owner: Majority owned by
Australian private equity firm Mercury Capital
49 medical centres (up two)
Enrolled patients: 299,000
South Link Health Services
Owner: South Link Education Trust
26 medical centres (up three after purchasing six practices and merging others)
Enrolled patients: 151,965
Omni Health
Owner: Gavin Pitt, Sanford Health, Mark Wills and others
20 practices (bought one but merger leaves total the same)
Enrolled patients: 82,000
Better Health
Owner: David Jones, Graham McGeogh, Baden Ewart and others
15 practices (up three)
Enrolled patients: 88,000
Third Age Health
Owner: Listed on the NZX,
Bevan Walsh, Michael Haskell and others
Six practices (up five after buying four and opening new joint-venture practice)
Enrolled patients: 20,300 (+3200 enrolled patients living in aged-residential care)
Tend Health
Owner: Cecilia Robinson, James Robinson, Philippa Greenwood, Theresa Gattung and others
Three practices (up two)
Enrolled patients: (not divulged)
PHO NETWORKS
Pinnacle Midlands Health Network
14 practices (sold one, bought one)
Enrolled patients: about 67,000
Tū Ora Compass Health
Seven practices (up one)
Enrolled patients: 53,000
East Health Trust
Five practices (up one after merging two, buying one and opening new practice with joint-venture partner Care Group)
Enrolled patients: 32,200
ProCare
Five practices (up four after buying five but merging one of them)
Enrolled patients: 31,414
Te Hau o Te Ora (Awarua Rūnaka, Hokonui Runanga and Well South)
Two practices (the joint venture acquired one and opened one)
Enrolled patients: 3704
READ MORE
- Third Age Health buys sixth general practice with more in the pipeline
- Aussies buy Tāmaki Health
- Green Cross goes on buy-up bender: Three practices acquired and talks on Tāmaki too
- In community we trust: reviewing ownership
- MAPPING the MOVEMENT: General practice ownership trends
- Keeping up with the corporates: A who’s who of practice ownership
- Practice tectonics: Who owns who in general practice
- Green Cross Health and Nirvana big players in practice ownership
New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa talked to three GP-owned practices that have opted to keep “skin in the game” to boost their sustainability, by becoming what can best be described as big group practices.