Introduction
Over the previous decade, non-public fairness corporations and different well-funded company entities together with hospitals and insurers have expanded their presence in doctor practices throughout the nation. In 2024, hospitals and company entities employed nearly 80% of physicians. A rising physique of proof means that company possession buildings prioritize monetary good points over affected person care, undermine doctor autonomy, and improve well being care spending. Policymakers are more and more grappling with the best way to regulate the rising company funding in doctor practices.
Oregon has emerged as an early instance of how states can confront this problem. In recent times, the state has enacted reforms focusing on each the company apply of medication and oversight of well being care transactions. Collectively, these insurance policies type a multi-pronged technique to restrict company affect over doctor practices and defend sufferers from the potential harms of consolidation.
Strengthening Company Apply of Drugs Legal guidelines
Company apply of medication (CPOM) is a authorized doctrine primarily codified in statute, requiring that licensed physicians and different clinicians personal for-profit medical practices. Its function is to make sure that licensed clinicians—not company actors—retain final authority over medical and operational choices affecting affected person care. The doctrine displays considerations that company revenue motives might battle with clinicians’ moral obligation to prioritize affected person care.
Extra just lately, firms have developed workarounds that allow de facto management over doctor practices, most notably by means of the “pleasant doctor mannequin.” Beneath this method, a lay company—similar to a non-public equity-owned firm—creates a separate entity referred to as a administration providers group (MSO) that good points management over the doctor apply’s belongings and installs an affiliated doctor because the nominal proprietor of the apply. The MSO-affiliated doctor might don’t have any energetic medical function on the apply or dwell out of state. The MSO then enters administration providers preparations with the apply to successfully acquire full operational and administrative management.
These preparations invert CPOM’s supposed relationship between the apply and the MSO. Somewhat than functioning as a vendor supporting a physician-owned apply, the MSO has full management over the apply. This dynamic dangers undermining doctor autonomy and limiting physicians’ means to lift considerations about administration choices affecting affected person care. Consequently, researchers have more and more scrutinized the pleasant doctor mannequin as a mechanism for oblique company management, and state curiosity round amending CPOM legal guidelines to manage the pleasant doctor mannequin have additionally grown.
In 2025, Oregon handed one of many most complete CPOM legal guidelines within the nation by prohibiting the “pleasant doctor” mannequin. The regulation bans MSOs or anybody they contract with from having majority management or possession over a apply or exercising final management within the doctor apply. The statute additionally bars inventory restriction agreements and renders many noncompete, nondisclosure, and nondisparagement clauses unenforceable. By combining these possession and contractual restrictions, Oregon’s regulation restrains MSOs and goals to revive the spirit of CPOM. Nonetheless, the regulation didn’t create an enforcement authority inside state businesses and may solely be enforced by means of non-public proper of motion.
Transaction Oversight
Transaction oversight permits states to watch and assessment mergers, acquisitions, and different possession modifications amongst well being care entities. States vary from having no oversight authority or pre-transaction assessment authority to having complete oversight frameworks that embrace transaction approval and post-transaction monitoring to guard sufferers and communities. Just lately, states have expanded their oversight authority. A 2024 publication discovered that 13 states had transaction approval authority. By late 2025, that quantity had grown to 32. These mechanisms are supposed to make sure that consolidation and funding don’t undermine affordability, high quality, or entry to care.
In 2021, Oregon handed one of the vital complete transaction oversight frameworks within the nation. Not like most states, Oregon requires pre-transaction notification and approval for sure transactions involving doctor practices that exceed a specified income threshold. Regulators assessment the potential impression of those proposed transactions on client prices, high quality, entry, and fairness. The regulation additionally provides regulators post-transaction oversight authority, permitting the state to watch transactions after they shut and implement circumstances designed to guard affordability, entry, high quality, and fairness. If the entities are discovered to be out of compliance with any circumstances of approval, regulators can pursue authorized treatments.
Oregon’s CPOM reforms work along with the state’s transaction oversight authority, forming a multi-pronged technique to restrict company affect within the supply of well being care providers. Beneath the state’s transaction oversight framework, the Well being Care Market Oversight (HCMO) program might deny a fabric change transaction topic to assessment if there’s a substantial chance it could violate the regulation. Accordingly, if a transaction entails a pleasant doctor association that violates the strengthened CPOM regulation, HCMO has the authority to disclaim approval.
Wanting Ahead
Oregon’s strengthened CPOM provisions take impact on a staggered timeline. The regulation grew to become efficient in January 2026 for MSOs and doctor practices fashioned after June 2025. Current MSOs and doctor practices fashioned earlier than June 2025 should comply starting in 2029.
Early trade actions are testing how the brand new regulation is interpreted. For instance, PeaceHealth just lately determined to exchange its long-standing emergency division doctor group, Eugene Emergency Physicians, with Lane Emergency Physicians. The brand new apply is solely owned by an Illinois doctor affiliated with ApolloMD, a Georgia-based MSO that additionally serves as Lane Emergency Doctor’s MSO. Legislative and gubernatorial scrutiny have adopted. Oregon lawmakers have requested for info to find out whether or not the association complies with the strengthened CPOM regulation and requested the events submit the transaction for assessment. On the similar time, Eugene Emergency Physicians filed a lawsuit towards PeaceHealth, ApolloMD, and Lane Emergency Physicians, alleging the brand new association depends on the pleasant doctor mannequin that the up to date CPOM regulation prohibits.
Oregon’s expertise might present essential insights for different states looking for to curb company affect in well being care. Specifically, monitoring how the CPOM reforms work together with the state’s transaction oversight framework will assist assess whether or not these insurance policies safeguard doctor autonomy, restrain prices, and defend sufferers.
