Our Health Care Real Estate Briefing is your comprehensive summary of weekly health care real estate highlights happening across the nation.
1. The North Carolina Senate passed a bill that partially repeals its Certificate of Need (“CON”) law for facilities in rural areas and for certain medical specialties. The bill is headed to the House of Representatives per Carolina Journal.
2. The Rhode Island Senate passed that bill that imposes a one-year moratorium on hospital transactions where the buyer is a for-profit corporation. The bill is headed to the House of Representatives per The Valley Breeze.
3. A number of states, including Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation that is designed to regulate health care staffing agencies. The legislation would cap rates charged by agencies for health care workers and has died in most states. Iowa and Oregon have been successful in passing similar legislation. Additionally, states are trying to address price gouging in the skilled nursing industry that is driving up labor costs per Skilled Nursing News.
4. Hall Render recorded a podcast on Stark and Anti-Kickback issues impacting health care real estate transactions. Thanks to attorneys Addison Bradford, Libby Park and Joe Wolfe for recording the episode. Listen to the full episode here.
5. Fitch Ratings issued a note on Tenet Healthcare where Fitch outlined Tenet’s shift from operating hospitals to a focus on operating ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”). In 2021, 30% of Tenant’s earnings came from its ASC business but Tenant would like 50% of its earnings to come from ASCs. Margins in its ASC business were over 3x higher than its hospital business.
6. Senior housing occupancy is up slightly during Q1 of 2022. Current occupancy across all senior housing sectors is around 80%, and occupancy was around 86% pre-pandemic per GlobeSt.com.
7. Gastroenterology practices are the latest target for private equity firms looking to roll up physician practice groups. The largest PE-owned GI groups are 1) GI Alliance – 650 doctors and 400 locations; 2) PE GI Solutions – 600 doctors and 60 locations; and 3) Gastro Health – 300 doctors and 100 locations per Hospitalogy.
8. New hospital projects were announced by Baptist Health in San Antonio, TX, Nashville General Hospital in Nashville, TN and St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings, MT.
9. Indiana University Health is looking for an in-house real estate attorney to join its real estate department. View the job posting here.
10. CBRE published a report on India’s health care sector. It is poised for substantial growth over the next decade and will require 1.3B sf of space. Demand is driven by rising income levels, growing health awareness, better access to medical insurance, government spending on health care and an aging population per Business Today.
Hall Render blog posts and articles are intended for informational purposes only. For ethical reasons, Hall Render attorneys cannot—outside of an attorney-client relationship—answer an individual’s questions that may constitute legal advice.
