In this episode, Amber Walsh, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP, discusses the evolving healthcare private equity landscape, investor interest across physician specialties, the continued growth of ASC strategies, and more.

Physician Practice Management and Healthcare Private Equity Trends in 2026 with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 6-19-26

Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Becker Private Equity &amp; Business

## Transcript

This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Private Equity and Becker Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by brilliant leader, Amber Walsh. And Amber's going to talk to us about the state of healthcare private equity with a particular reference to physician practice management companies. Amber, let me tee it up and ask you, what is the current state of investing in practice management companies and MSOs and so forth around physician specialties? What are you seeing out there?

Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion over the past couple of years of various headwinds, I guess, that kind of slowed or I would actually use rationalized some of the investments in physician practice management. Some of those dynamics that we've dealt with over the past couple of years are tougher regulatory environments where several different states have,

have famously introduced and are now actively reviewing physician practice management deals prior to closure on a much more active basis or reimbursement pressure. There's a whole host of things, higher interest rates, etc., that have been talked about as headwinds on the investment in the physician practice management space. And I think a lot of that is

true. But I intentionally use the word rationalized because what I think has really happened is that investors have become more thoughtful. You might use cautious in some ways, but thoughtful. They're spending a lot of time in assessing the structures of their deals. They're doing deeper dives into

diligence, more thoughtfully crafting and going after different deals. So you're still seeing plenty of activity. And last year was actually a record-breaking year in healthcare, private equity investments. But it's different than it was a couple of years ago.

Because of these dynamics, you're seeing a lot more thoughts, carefulness. And I think the ultimate deals are happening probably with a lot more rigor around how they're actually going to operate going forward.

And take a second. You use the word, and I love this, more maybe rationality around it. And we see that in the doubling down in certain specialties and not in other specialties. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because it seems like some areas, it's going great. And some of the hugest practice management-driven things are going really well. In other areas, it seems very challenging. Do you break any of that down by specialty? Or how do you look at some of that?

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. There are some features of different specialties within the PPM world that make particular specialties more attractive.

And we're talking on the specialty basis now. Of course, you've got individual practice and platform delineations as well. But when you're talking about on a specialty basis, the ones that are getting the most attention, enthusiasm from investors are those that are really poised to take advan...

Physician Practice Management and Healthcare Private Equity Trends in 2026 with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 6-19-26

Transcript

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Physician Practice Management and Healthcare Private Equity Trends in 2026 with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 6-19-26

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.