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Regulatory Shifts, Deal Market Trends, and Strategic Focus in Healthcare with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 8-5-25
00:07:30
In this episode, Holly Buckley, Chair of Healthcare at McGuireWoods, shares insights on key regulatory changes impacting healthcare private equity, current trends in the deal market, and her team’s focus areas for the remainder of the year,
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Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in the Becker Business podcast. I'm thrilled today to joined by Holly Buckley. Holly chairs the healthcare department McGuire Woods. She also works and lives at the intersection of health care and private equity and business. She's going to talk to say about three quick subjects. First, some regulatory updates that she's watching in the private equity health care world. Second, what's going on in the deal market and third, where she and her team are most focused for the remainder of this year. Holly, let me turn it to you.
- [00:32]
B
Thank you. And Scott, congratulations on your Apple podcast rankings. Just amazing success and congrats on being top of the chart.
- [00:41]
A
Thank you so much. Truly a labor of love. Thank you. Holly, let me turn it back to you, but thank you very very much.
- [00:47]
B
Jumping in on some regulatory updates. So in July the one big beautiful bill was signed into law and with that we saw the CBO score was finalized with estimated 3.4 trillion in new deficit spending and 10 million Americans projected to lose health insurance. And also we've seen with the legislation sweeping tax changes, Medicaid cuts and a host of other health care policies. We did also see within that a 2.5% increase coming in 2026 for Medicare physician payments. And then also we have the new Rural Hospital Fund which despite Its name is 50 billion dollar fund designed to support a range of rural health initiatives, not just hospital related, including clinics and telehealth providers. So that should bring about some interesting developments on the rural front. In addition to the physician fee schedule increased, we're also seeing ASD and hospital outpatient payments improve whereas the government is more focused on moving care to less costly settings. So CMS is doubling down on site neutral payment policies proposing to eliminate the inpatient only list for surgeries. And CMS is also adding more outpatient procedures, those that can be reimbursed in an asd. We're seeing a proposed rule looking to reduce reimbursement for skin substitutes which is going to pose a major concern for wound care providers. And then also there's a home health and DME Post proposed rule which addresses payment updates, quality reporting and face to face encounter policy changes. So just a fair amount of activity on the legislative front. And then in addition we're seeing the government enforcement priorities kind of come back front and center with the False Claims Act Task Force. The DOJ and HHS has relaunched their False Claims Act Working Group which signals a renewed focus on health care enforcement. And we're going to see likely attention on Medicare Advantage managed care fraud kickbacks and drugs and biologics pricing practices. And so we think that this is going to be pretty consistent with the last Trump administration administration and Trump's plan to aggressively enforce the False Claims Act. We're also likely to see focused on remote patient monitoring. So, so lots of activity there.
- [03:25]
A
Let's touch for one second there one bit further. It seems like as you talk about all these things in the bill, it doesn't sound that bad. But when I hear from industry, they were overwhelmingly very negative about this, including the physicians, the ASCs and others and health systems, of course, and very worried about Medicaid cuts. What's your overall take from the health system industry or the provider industry as well as from the private equity industry on the, on the one big beautiful bill, as it's called?
- [03:57]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think from hospitals and health systems and providers in general, I think there's a lot of trepidation about the Medicaid cuts. I think it's going to put a lot of strain on the system. I think all of the 10 million Americans who are going to lose insurance coverage, they're going to still need to get health care and that's going to put a lot of stress, especially on hospitals and health systems and post Covid flooding back into emergency rooms and providers of last resort really having to deal with the massive increase in volume and those costs are going to go somewhere and it will really impact providers. And so I do think that the rural health aspect is seen as a little bit of a distraction, but not necessarily an equalizer for the potential damage from the loss of coverage. I think on the private equity front, I think it's mixed. There's going to be some sectors that are negatively impacted. I think some other sectors or some other investors are looking at opportunities that the, the cuts are going to bring. So for example, we're seeing some investors looking at how can they focus on the back to work requirements and develop systems to support states in those areas. So I think there's definitely some, some who see opportunity, but I think amongst the provider community, I think it is viewed very negatively Howie, thank you so much.
- [05:23]
A
That was my take from the provider side. Give us a sense the private equity deal market and what you're most focused on this last few months of the year.
- [05:32]
B
Yeah. So as reported the last time we chatted, it does feel like the second half of the year is getting really busy, which is terrific. We've been very active, I'd say, heading into the second half of the year. And as the second half of the year gets underway. We're seeing some really nice platform buy side deals. We're seeing the platform deal market also picking up and sell sides continuing to remain relatively robust for the year. And so I think we're expecting the back half of 2025 to be to be strong.
- [06:09]
A
Thank you. What do you see as the big priorities for the group and the team that you lead for the next several months? Where do you see the top priorities and where you most focused?
- [06:18]
B
You know, we continue to look at building out and growing our FDA and life sciences group. We've had tremendous growth and success with that group in the last 18 months and we're continuing to build that out and take that group to market. So that will continue to be a focus for us. And that group focuses both on know servicing the kind of the life sciences market as well as assisting investors and lenders with their activities in the market as well. And so that's just been a very, a very fun area and one that we'll continue to focus in. I think other than that, it's really just doubling down to make sure that as our clients are getting more active for the second half of the year that we're able to really execute on that and continue to develop and build our talent pool. So bucking and tackling and more of the same.
- [07:10]
A
No, you're doing an incredible job how again, thank you for sharing with us the regulatory updates, the deal outlook as well as the focus for the rest of the year, including the FDA and life sciences efforts. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
- [07:26]
B
Thank you, Scott.