Private equity investors are increasingly buying gastroenterology practices. Around 1,400 of the nation’s gastroenterologists are employees or partners in practices backed by private equity. According to a recent whitepaper, acquisitions of gastroenterology practices by private equity grew by 28% last year. As one investment manager noted:
We are in the Golden Age of older rectums—from a supply side, at least. Elderly people will make up 20% of the population by 2030, and health care costs are projected to approach 20% of the nation’s gross domestic product—the highest in the world, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It would seem a boom time for gastroenterologists.