If you're selling to physician groups, ownership structure could be tricky. The practice might be physician-owned, it might roll up to a health system, or a PE firm might own the management company that runs the whole back office behind the scenes. Each of those is going to be a different buyer, a different expansion and upsell motion, different budgets, different reasons to say no, and different psychographics.
Why the data is tricky
There's no single public file or database that answers this question. CMS publishes All Owners files for hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, and a few other facility types. Physician group practices aren't on that list.
You build the answer from pieces.
How you could figure it out
This is a great starting point, but it's important to layer more in.
1. Search the group
Search the group in the NPPES NPI Registry. You want the Type 2 (organization) National Provider Identifier. A unique 10-digit number for US health care providers. Type 1 NPIs are for individual clinicians; Type 2 NPIs are for organizations like group practices., not an individual physician. Record the legal business name, any other names, and the practice addresses. If the record is a subpart, NPPES also lists the parent organization's legal business name and Taxpayer Identification Number. For a group practice, usually its federal Employer Identification Number (EIN), which its Medicare billing is tied to..
2. Find who bills under the group in Medicare
CMS publishes the Revalidation Clinic Group Practice Reassignment file, which links clinicians to the groups they reassign benefits to.
You'll want to look for two things:
- The same clinicians reassigning to several groups with similar names.
- A group whose legal name doesn't match the brand on its website.
Both of these can be signs of a platform that has rolled up several practices.
3. Look for a hospital or health system
There can be traces when a hospital or health system owns the group. The AHRQ Compendium of U.S. Health Systems links group practices to health systems. Nonprofit systems also file IRS Form 990, and Schedule R lists related organizations, which can include the medical group.
4. Read the state business filings
State business filings are a public database. Search the practice's legal name, and any parent name you found, with the Secretary of State where it's registered. Look for differences, like a professional corporation with a physician as its officer and an LLC with an out-of-state holding company as its manager. Those can be very different. Record all the entity names. You'll use them in the next step.
There are also private paid databases that can help fill gaps. They're useful, but they're still worth checking against the public filings.
5. Search state transaction notices
A growing number of states require advance notice before certain health care deals close, including California, Washington, and Oregon. California posts submitted notices. Washington collects notices 60 days before closing. Oregon's Health Care Market Oversight program can review covered deals.
6. Confirm on the practice's own pages
Read the footer, the privacy policy, the careers page, and any note about joining or partnering with a larger group. Job postings sometimes name the Management services organization. A company that runs a practice's non-clinical operations, like billing, staffing and IT, under a management agreement. Private equity firms often own the MSO rather than the practice itself. as the employer of the administrative staff even when the website doesn't. When the public pages and the filings don't agree, the filings usually win.
A record for each practice
For each practice, start with the legal name, the Type 2 NPI, any parent name, who bills under the group, officers or managers from the state filing, any health system link, and any transaction notice. Then add the ownership pattern you landed on, and the date you checked, because this changes.
FAQs
How can I tell if a medical practice is owned by private equity?
Look for a management services organization. The PE firm usually owns the MSO, while physicians keep legal ownership of the professional corporation. Signs include an out-of-state holding company in the state filings, clinicians reassigning to several similarly named groups, and a legal name that doesn't match the brand on the website.
How do I know if a physician group is owned by a hospital or health system?
There can be traces. Check the AHRQ Compendium of U.S. Health Systems, the group's NPPES parent field, and, if the system is a nonprofit, its Form 990 Schedule R, which can include the medical group. Then confirm against the practice's own pages.