Rising consolidation amongst hospitals, doctor practices, and different well being care entities is driving up well being care costs. On the identical time, rising corporatization of well being care makes it more and more arduous to uncover which entities personal or management a well being care observe or different well being care entity. As state policymakers grapple with excessive and rising business well being care costs, they confirmed a rising curiosity throughout 2025 legislative periods in leveraging possession transparency as a software to raised perceive their altering well being care markets, strengthen oversight efforts, and inform shoppers.
Payments to extend the transparency of possession and management of well being care entities have been launched in at the least eight states in 2025, and made it throughout the end line in 4 of them. The rise in state policymakers’ curiosity and exercise seemingly displays a number of interrelated elements, together with:
This weblog submit examines the position of state possession transparency inside broader reform efforts and evaluations possession transparency-related legal guidelines handed in 2025 in Massachusetts, Indiana, New Mexico, and Washington, in addition to payments thought-about, however not enacted, in Maine, Minnesota, Texas, and Vermont.
Who owns or controls a doctor observe, hospital, and different suppliers—and their vested monetary pursuits—can influence costs charged, companies provided, high quality, and entry to care, but it may be arduous or inconceivable to know which entities personal or management a well being care observe or facility. An online of complicated company constructions amongst interrelated entities can obscure the possession or controlling pursuits of particular person practices or services, in addition to total traits in consolidation in well being care markets. Present knowledge sources on possession have gaps, and there’s no full, publicly accessible knowledge supply with possession data for doctor practices.
States usually acquire some possession data as a part of state licensure of, for instance, hospitals and well being insurers. Some states go additional, gathering extra data to leverage possession transparency as a software for monitoring and understanding their altering well being care markets. Possession transparency efforts, the place they exist, usually require: (1) annual or periodic reporting, and/or (2) reporting triggered by proposed modifications, equivalent to mergers and acquisitions. These two constructions serve totally different functions and could be complementary:
- Annual reporting allows an possession registry that may present data—some or a lot of it in any other case unknowable—to a number of varieties of customers. It may, for instance, enable a person affected person to study whether or not their physician’s workplace is owned or managed by a hospital, an insurance coverage conglomerate, Amazon, non-public fairness, or different company entities. Annual reporting may also assist reveal the diploma of consolidation in well being care markets at this time and the character of relationships between entities. This may inform state policymakers, regulators, and researchers looking for to raised perceive their markets or restrict anticompetitive practices. Massachusetts has the longest-standing mannequin for this strategy that requires a variety of supplier organizations to systematically report possession and management data frequently, which the state then makes publicly accessible.
- Notices of proposed transactions alert states to impending or potential modifications to possession or management. They’ll present data obligatory for state certificates of want or pre-transaction overview and oversight applications. Notices could be made public or stored confidential. Even in states that lack authority to administratively overview or approve/reject proposed well being care transactions, a broad requirement for well being care entities to supply advance discover of transactions permits the state to trace patterns of consolidation and totally leverage present state antitrust authority. Not less than 35 states require hospitals, and in some instances, different well being care entities, to supply discover of sure proposed transactions or modifications.
Transparency alone can’t stop dangerous consolidation nor tackle anti-competitive conduct, as higher calibrated instruments can. However transparency gives insights into altering well being care markets and may function a basis for or complement to extra methods to handle consolidation and management the expansion in business well being care costs.
Massachusetts’ Registration of Supplier Organizations (MA-RPO) program requires supplier organizations that meet sure income and affected person thresholds to yearly file possession, monetary, and different data with related state businesses. As well as, giant suppliers should submit a discover of fabric change 60 days earlier than proposed modifications, together with mergers and acquisitions. This data informs the state’s market oversight and evaluation features, and Massachusetts publicly posts the supplier registry knowledge and materials change notices to permit policymakers, researchers, and market individuals to know and enhance the state’s well being care system.
The 2024 collapse of Steward Well being Care, which stemmed partially from destabilizing non-public fairness techniques, supplied a stress take a look at for these state applications and uncovered just a few blind spots. In response, Massachusetts enacted a legislation in January 2025 that, amongst different provisions, closed loopholes that had successfully exempted many non-public fairness and company buyers from supplier transparency and oversight necessities. The legislation extends MA-RPO reporting necessities to incorporate new data associated to non-public fairness buyers, actual property funding trusts, and administration companies organizations, and will increase the penalties for failing to report data from $1,000 per week to $25,000 per week. The legislation additionally provides particular transactions– equivalent to non-public fairness taking possession or management of a supplier group and a big switch of property, together with the sale and subsequent lease-back of a well being care supplier’s actual property –to the state’s record of fabric modifications that require an advance discover.
Indiana enacted a slate of well being care price containment payments in 2025, together with HB 1666, which requires a variety of well being care entities that function in Indiana to report possession data to the state frequently. An identical invoice did not go the yr earlier than. The legislation applies broadly to well being care suppliers (although sure practitioner-owned practices are exempted) together with well being insurers, well being upkeep organizations (HMOs), third-party directors (TPAs), and pharmacy profit managers (PBMs). These entities should usually disclose the entities or people who maintain an possession or controlling curiosity or curiosity as a non-public fairness accomplice to an relevant state company. Hospitals, insurers, HMOs, TPAs, and PBMs should report yearly and are topic to fines for noncompliance. Well being care suppliers aside from hospitals should report each different yr and should not topic to fines.
The Division of Well being should compile the possession data reported to numerous state businesses into an annual report and submit it on-line. As filed, the invoice would have made this possession data publicly accessible, however as handed, it incorporates broad exclusions. The state could omit the title of an individual or entity that holds an possession stake in any well being care entity, in addition to possession data that isn’t extensively accessible to most people. It stays to be seen whether or not the knowledge launched below this legislation may, for instance, assist an individual perceive which entity owns or controls their physician’s observe. The Division of Well being can, nonetheless, share possession data with the Workplace of Lawyer Normal, which is permitted below this legislation to analyze the market focus of a well being care entity at any time, along with its present authority associated to well being care antitrust investigations.
In April, New Mexico enacted a legislation to increase and develop expiring state regulatory authority from the Well being Care Consolidation Oversight Act handed the earlier yr. HB 586 authorizes state regulators to supervise proposed transactions, together with a change in possession or management of a hospital, a change in command of the true property on which a hospital is positioned, and the acquisition of an impartial supplier observe by an insurer or its associates. The up to date legislation provides transparency provisions that the prior model lacked. It requires the New Mexico Well being Care Authority to publicly submit discover of and take public touch upon proposed transactions. The company should additionally yearly submit hospital possession on its web site and supply updates when there are modifications to a hospital’s possession or the true property on which it stands. HB 586 handed on the heels of the failure of a separate oversight invoice that included extra sturdy reporting on possession and management of well being care entities.
Washington enacted a legislation that lays the groundwork for future possession transparency. The preamble of the brand new legislation explains that Washington is at the moment ill-equipped to observe traits in its well being care market, together with vital consolidation amongst well being care entities and a pointy improve in non-public fairness acquisitions, and perceive their impacts on well being care entry and affordability.
The legislation directs the Division of Well being, in session with different state businesses, to develop a plan for a “full and interactive registry” that makes well being care entity possession and management clear. The Division should specify which entities ought to report (together with at the least well being techniques, services, suppliers, insurers, and well being care profit managers) and what data needs to be collected. The legislation acknowledges the complexity in unearthing layers of often-obscured possession or management and requires methods to know direct and oblique possession and management (and modifications to them) by monitoring company constructions, funding, and contractual relationships. The Division should submit a progress report back to the legislature by the top of 2027 and a closing report by late 2028. Lawmakers allotted $500,000 for the biennium to develop the plan.
Lawmakers in Maine, Minnesota, Texas, and Vermont filed possession transparency payments in 2025 that didn’t in the end make it throughout the end line. These payments would have required sure well being care entities to report on their possession each yearly and after a fabric change, and data would have been made publicly accessible. The payments would have usually required well being care entities to reveal the entities or people that maintain an possession, funding, or controlling curiosity in them, together with their vital fairness buyers and relationships with administration companies organizations.
The states that handed possession transparency payments to this point in 2025 exhibit that progress is feasible in states with starkly totally different political environments, although in some instances, solely after a multi-session effort. Laws thought-about in 2025 additionally exhibits that states are responding to the growing corporatization of well being care by tailoring transparency necessities to seize which company actors exert management over a well being care entity’s operations or take possession of its actual property, even when they don’t immediately personal the well being care entity. Curiosity in possession transparency could proceed to develop as state policymakers search instruments to assist inform shoppers, management the expansion in well being care costs, and mitigate harms from consolidation in well being care markets.