Charlotte Doctor Discusses the Benefits of Private Investment in Health Care at AIC and Punchbowl News Event
Dr. Robert Mittl Jr.: “Our partnership with private equity has given us the capital to expand, the expertise to manage our practices, navigate the shortage of physicians and technologists.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Last week, the American Investment Council sponsored an event hosted by Punchbowl News exploring how private equity investments fuel innovation, small businesses, and the health care sector in North Carolina. One of the panelists was Dr. Robert Mittl Jr., a neuroradiologist at Charlotte Radiology. In this conversation, Dr. Mittl highlighted how private equity enhances quality, affordability, and local health care in North Carolina, that improves lives.
Like all states, North Carolina enjoys numerous benefits from private investment, particularly in the health care sector. Since 2006, private equity has invested almost $1 trillion in the US health care system. From funding innovation and research into deadly diseases to renovating medical facilities, these investments help improve Americans’ quality of care. Private investment also supports health care providers streamline tedious paperwork and administrative tasks, freeing up their time to focus on caring for patients.
AIC also released a new video that shows the positive impact of private equity investment in health care and features US Radiology.
See below for some of Dr. Mittl’s key remarks:
The Positives of Private Equity Investment in Health Care
As a practicing neuroradiologist at Charlotte Radiology with his medical practice, Dr. Mittl shared firsthand the advantages private equity brings to practices like Charlotte Radiology. “Private equity investment in health care has many positives…The reality is private equity investment in health care is better for patients, it’s good for doctors, it’s better for quality, and maintains community engagement.”
Expanding US Radiology to More than 5,000 Employees
Dr. Mittl elaborated on how private equity helped expand his radiology practice and improve patient care. “We partnered with a private equity investment firm, Welsh Carson, and formed US Radiology. And US Radiology now has grown from just Charlotte Radiology and our roughly 30 imaging centers of different types to a national footprint. We’re in 13 states. We have 175 imaging centers. We have 5,000 employees. We have over 350 physicians. So we’ve really sort of had a great growth curve.”
Private Equity Partnerships Bring Capital and Expertise
In addition to providing medical professionals with the capital they need to expand, Dr. Mittl discussed how private equity partnerships bring physicians a high level of management expertise that supports how they manage their practices. “What a private equity partner brings to a physician group is capital and expertise. And so the capital, I’ve talked about, to help us continue to grow, this very capital-intensive imaging center, mammography center, sort of business. But also the expertise is an increasingly important thing that is needed to help physicians navigate the world…Now you’ve got compliance and credentialing and billing and collections and IT sophistication and cybersecurity concerns.”
Private Equity Boosts Patient Satisfaction
When asked for his perspective on recent media coverage of private investment in health care, Dr. Mittl set the record straight about who benefits most from investment: patients and physicians. “Yeah, there’s an unfortunate narrative, which is unfair and inaccurate, about the effects of private equity investment in health care. It’s presumed, without looking at the data, that it’s bad for patients, has negative impact on physicians, it hurts quality, you know, prevents community or drives down community engagement. So, in our own world, let’s look at the actual data. Patient satisfaction ratings across US Radiology are 97%. In Charlotte Radiology, in particular, 98% were satisfied. That is the envy of any health care entity. You just don’t see that.”
“We perform better” Because of Private Equity Investment
Dr. Mittl also addressed other common misconceptions about private equity in the media. “Quality. That is usually the thing that is held against private equity in medicine. Let’s look at the data… In US Radiology, we do 500,000 screening mammograms a year. And compared to benchmark, we perform better in the number of cancers we find per thousand than the average practice. And we perform better in having fewer false positive callbacks, calling back people, and putting them through the cost and the anxiety and maybe the discomfort of procedures and evaluation. So the data shows that we are superior performers in detecting cancers, the vast majority are early small ones which are lower cost to treat, better outcomes, without calling back an excessive number of patients.”
Click here to watch the full event hosted by Punchbowl News.
