What Are Physicians’ Duties to Patients When They Sell Their Practices?

Physicians have fiduciary duties to respond with care to patient's clinical needs and vulnerabilities, whereas private equity (PE) companies have no such ethical or legal duties to patients and strive to maximize financial returns for their investors. This commentary on a case considers ethical conflicts of interest that arise when physicians sell their practices to PE firms and describes what physicians should consider when selling to fundamentally profit-driven entities.