Cancer centers cropping up everywhere
HOSPITALS, HEALTH SYSTEMS SEEING NEED TO CONSOLIDATE CARE, COMPETE
By Dan Emerson
While cancer is still the leading cause of death among Americans under age 85, medicine has made great strides in helping more patients survive the disease. With the number of cancer deaths continuing to decline, the estimated survival rate among all cancer patients has reached 50 percent in the United States.
Combine this success with America’s aging demographics and the diagnosis and treatment of cancer has become a very big, and for that matter worthwhile, business.
That point was underscored with an exclamation point in 2004, when the owners of Houston-based U.S. Oncology Inc. took their publicly-traded company private, selling it to Oiler Acquisition Corp., a unit of New York-based private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe. The price tag was a cool $1.09 billion.
By partnering with medical groups around the country, U.S. Oncology has grown to become the largest healthcare network devoted exclusively to cancer treatment and research, with more than 1,000 affiliated physicians and more than 440 sites around the country. In the third quarter of 2007,U.S.oncology added 42 new physicians and had three new centers under construction.
The business of fighting cancer doesn’t end with U.S. Oncology.
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