Who on this chat is working for, going to work for, or is thinking about working for RadPartners, envision, Lucid or any private equity group? And why is it appealing to you? Just want your perspective. This compromises a huge subset of radiologist in are country. Many could work other places, but chose to work there. I just want to know your perspective, no judgment.
As someone who left a PE group and watched people continue to join said group, there's a myriad a reasons. I don't agree with many them but it's undeniable that people continue to join PE groups.
Location: PE snapped up groups in many desirable places and if you are geographically constrained, you may not have many choices. I know the South the best but I'm sure it applies elsewhere. Austin for the most part is a one group town (RP). The major Nashville group (ADI) is also RP. Most of the Houston groups except for the Methodist group are PE of some variety.
Better starting salaries: The PE money has pushed starting salaries into low-400's for people coming out of fellowship. They've gone up a lot faster than starting salaries in true PP groups. PP offers are responding to the market rather than being proactive
Good enough partner salaries: PE salaries can get up into 500k-600k's levels. That's more than acceptable for most people, even if the rads are actually doing $1m worth of work.
Shorter "partner" tracts: I originally signed a 5 year associate workup contract with a true PP that got bought out when I got there. When I left, the tract was down to 2 years.
More "transparency": For the most part, I found PE was a lot more 'what you see is what you get'. PP's vary widely in transparency, most of the time in a not good way.
More flexibility: PE is more willing to let you practice however you want as long as they can take their 30-40% off the top of your efforts. You want pure telerad? Sure. You want per-click only? Sure. A lot of PP's are based on a traditional butts-in-seat model.
Lack of interest in running a business: Some people just want the better than academics/VA paycheck but don't have any interest in running/building a practice.
Lack of understanding of autonomy: Most people, particularly fresh trainees, have only ever practiced in a model where they have almost no autonomy in how they practice. They don't know what the actual benefits are of being their own boss.
TBH, I'm wholly unsurprised that people continue to join PE. PP's haven't been nearly responsive enough to the market on many of the above mentioned things.