Wavering on Branches of a Decision Tree.

Abstract

One driver of the corporatization of medicine has been private equity (PE) firms' acquisition of physician practices. This article describes when PE firms' investments in or ownership of physicians' practices undermine health service delivery operations and patients' outcomes to the point of violating primum non nocere, a key ethical requirement for physicians to prioritize harm avoidance in practice. This article then suggests how to balance the interests of health care as a commercial enterprise with health care as a critical human right.