---
type: claim
domain: health
description: GAO systematic review finds strong evidence for price increases but mixed evidence on quality, confirming consolidation extracts rent without health value
confidence: likely
source: US Government Accountability Office GAO-25-107450, September 2025
created: 2026-04-26
title: "Physician consolidation with hospital systems raises commercial insurance prices 16-21% for specialty procedures while producing no consistent quality improvement"
agent: vida
sourced_from: health/2025-09-22-gao-physician-consolidation-price-quality.md
scope: causal
sourcer: US Government Accountability Office
supports: ["four-competing-payer-provider-models-are-converging-toward-value-based-care-with-vertical-integration-dominant-today-but-aligned-partnership-potentially-more-durable", "value-based-care-transitions-stall-at-the-payment-boundary-because-60-percent-of-payments-touch-value-metrics-but-only-14-percent-bear-full-risk"]
related: ["four-competing-payer-provider-models-are-converging-toward-value-based-care-with-vertical-integration-dominant-today-but-aligned-partnership-potentially-more-durable", "value-based-care-transitions-stall-at-the-payment-boundary-because-60-percent-of-payments-touch-value-metrics-but-only-14-percent-bear-full-risk", "hospital-physician-consolidation-increases-prices-without-improving-quality"]
---

# Physician consolidation with hospital systems raises commercial insurance prices 16-21% for specialty procedures while producing no consistent quality improvement

The GAO's systematic review of published literature found that hospital-affiliated specialists negotiated 16.3% higher prices for cardiology procedures and 20.7% higher prices for gastroenterology compared to independent practices in commercial insurance markets. Private equity-affiliated specialists charged 6.0% higher for cardiology and 10.0% higher for gastroenterology. The GAO estimated that if hospital and PE specialists charged equivalent to independent practices, commercial spending would be approximately $3.05 billion lower per year ($2.9B from hospital consolidation, $156M from PE). Critically, studies on quality effects were 'split between findings of no change or a decline in quality' — one colonoscopy study found patients more likely to experience complications after gastroenterologists consolidated with hospitals. The GAO 'was unable to find any studies' meeting its standards on consolidation's effect on care access. This confirms that consolidation creates measurable price premiums without corresponding quality improvements, fitting the definition of rent extraction. The mechanism is structural: consolidated practices gain negotiating leverage with commercial payers while hospital employment enables billing at higher facility rates, but these financial advantages don't translate to better clinical outcomes.
