Playbook
2026 Specialty Practice Management Growth Strategies
AI-powered practice management and healthcare SaaS economics, for PE and VC.
ReadFor private-equity sponsors
Same-store growth is the thesis you have to prove.
We install one growth engine across a healthcare platform's locations and brands: demand, a sixty-second door, a trained conversion layer, a proprietary add-on pipeline, and attribution an LP or a buyer can audit.
For private-equity sponsors
The math in your market
$191B
global healthcare private-equity deal value in 2025 — a record
Bain & Company, 2026
70%+
of North American $1B+ deals were sponsor-to-sponsor
Bain & Company, 2026
18%
fall in physician-practice-management deal count in 2025
PitchBook, Q4 2025
60%+
of North American provider deal value is now physician groups
Bain & Company, 2026
Capital is abundant and patient no longer. Global healthcare private-equity deal value hit a record $191 billion in 2025 across 445 buyouts, with exit value rebounding to about $156 billion and more than 150 sponsor-to-sponsor deals worth over $120 billion (Bain & Company, Global Healthcare Private Equity Report 2026). In North America, 26 deals above $1 billion closed through November 2025 against 14 in all of 2024, and more than 70 percent of them were sponsor-to-sponsor (Bain, 2026) — which means the next buyer is a professional who will underwrite your same-store number, not your story.
Underneath the headline, the physician-practice engine has cooled and re-sorted. PE healthcare-services deal count rose about 9.6 percent to roughly 747 in 2025 while value slipped 1.6 percent; physician-practice management deal count fell 18 percent, with dental down 36.5 percent and ophthalmology down 35.7 percent, even as MSK and orthopedics rose 33.3 percent, physical therapy 22.2 percent and home-based care 22.4 percent (PitchBook, Q4 2025 Healthcare Services Report). Physician groups are now more than 60 percent of North American provider deal value (Bain, 2026).
Two consequences for an operating partner. Multiple expansion is not the plan any more; organic growth inside the platform is. And the add-on pipeline has to be sourced, because the auction has repriced.
Where we started
Why a firm forged in behavioral health
That market has no multiple to hide behind.
We are a healthcare growth firm built in the hardest patient-acquisition market in medicine — addiction and behavioral-health treatment, through our behavioral health practice, Recovery Marketing Consultants — and we install the same engine across healthcare because the mechanics transfer.
That market has no multiple to hide behind. It taught us to build growth that shows up in the operating metrics inside a quarter: a door that answers in under a minute, a conversion layer that is trained and scored rather than hoped for, referral relationships built on a cadence, and attribution that ties spend to an admitted patient by location and by person. Those are the same four things a sponsor asks a platform CEO for, and rarely gets in a form that survives diligence.
The Care Revenue Engine
What we install across a portfolio
One engine, six stages, deployed platform-wide with a per-brand configuration rather than a per-agency contract.
Demand
One media plan and one dashboard across every location and local brand, replacing the patchwork of local agencies a roll-up inherits.
Demand GenerationEngagement
A first response in under sixty seconds at every location, every hour, including AI voice after hours — usually the single fastest lift in a newly acquired practice.
Patient EngagementConversion
Each platform's team, structured in tiered roles and trained in Care Conversations, with call review, an objection library and an ethics rubric that a compliance committee can read.
Conversion and TrainingRelationships
The add-on engine: every independent practice in the platform's markets ranked and scored for readiness, nurtured for the two to five years an owner takes to decide, so deals are direct-sourced instead of won at auction with a broker fee attached.
Referral and Partner GrowthRetention
Recall, reactivation and review velocity — the same-store lever that costs least and shows first.
RetentionData
One CRM, call tracking by location, EMR and PM integrations, and closed-loop attribution to campaign, location and rep, in dashboards built to be handed to a diligence team.
Data and AttributionThe evidence
Read the investor playbooks
Playbook
2026 PI Healthcare Growth Strategies
A $50-billion market with under 5% institutional ownership, and what a platform has to build to win it.
ReadPlaybook
2026 Eye Care Platform Growth Strategies
313 deals and $17.0 billion since 2019 (Vision Monday, 2024): same-store growth and a proprietary owner pipeline in a name-keeping model.
ReadPlaybook
2026 Dental Service Organization Growth Strategies
The Affiliation Paradox and the recap clock.
ReadBehavioral health for sponsors is in progress; it will publish on Recovery Marketing Consultants.
Accountability
How we measure
Targets are Care Marketers engineering targets, not industry averages, and they are the ones we report on monthly.
| Metric | Why a sponsor cares | Care Revenue Engine target |
|---|---|---|
| Same-store growth by location | The number the next sponsor-to-sponsor buyer underwrites (Bain, 2026) | Measurable movement by location within one quarter |
| Speed to first response | The cheapest conversion lift in any newly acquired practice | Under 60 seconds, 24/7, every location |
| Cost per acquired patient | Marketing efficiency that survives a QofE | At or below metro median while volume scales |
| Direct-sourced add-ons | Broker fees and auction premiums come straight out of returns | Majority of add-ons sourced from the platform's own pipeline within 24 months |
| Attribution coverage | Diligence-grade evidence that growth is repeatable | Closed-loop click-or-call to outcome, by location, source and rep |
| Ethics score on reviewed calls | Reputational and regulatory risk in a consumer-facing platform | Every reviewed call scored on the six published rules |
Proof
Results
[PROOF PLACEHOLDER — leadership to supply]
FAQ
Questions operating partners ask
Do you work for the sponsor or the portfolio company?
Either, and it matters. Engaged by the sponsor, we run a portfolio diagnostic and install where the return is largest, with reporting to the deal team. Engaged by the platform, the CEO owns the relationship and you get the same dashboards. We do not do both on one asset without everyone knowing.
How fast does this show up in the numbers?
The Diagnostic is 30 days, the Installation 90, in three phases. Response time and connection rate move in the first month because they are mechanical; cost per acquired patient and same-store volume follow within the quarter; the add-on pipeline is a two-year asset that starts producing conversations in months, not deals.
We already have agencies at the platform level.
Most platforms do, and most have a media agency, not a growth engine — nothing responsible for the phone, the conversion layer, the referral relationships or the attribution. We will tell you plainly on the Diagnostic if your existing agency is doing the job and where the actual gap is.
Can this survive diligence?
That is the point of the Data stage. Attribution built to be handed over, not reconstructed: one CRM, call tracking by location, integrations to the practice systems, and a dashboard that answers "where did this patient come from and what did they cost" for every location.
What about the platforms that are over-levered?
We are not a refinancing. If the constraint is the balance sheet rather than the funnel, the Diagnostic will say so, and we will tell you it is not the moment.
Book a portfolio session
Sixty minutes with the people who would do the work: a read on where growth is actually leaking across the portfolio, what the engine changes first, and what we would report to your deal team.
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