Health Care Valuation and Financial Advisory Services Practice

Founded in the 1960s, Willamette Management Associates serves health care and pharmaceutical clients from regional offices across the country. We are an independent firm providing valuation consulting, economic analysis, and financial advisory services.

Our health care valuation and corporate finance practice is based on the Willamette Management Associates standard of excellence: a standard of excellence in client service, a standard of excellence in empirical research, a standard of excellence in analytical rigor, and a standard of excellence in conceptual innovation.

As the delivery of health care services in the United States continues to evolve, providers are faced with both challenges and opportunities. Rising costs and reimbursement pressures create financial strains for many community hospitals. For these hospitals, capital formation to pursue their missions is a challenging issue. Advances in medical technology contribute to the ongoing shift of procedures from inpatient to outpatient settings. Physicians seek opportunities to participate in the financial success of the facilities where they treat their patients. Health systems are forced to divest low margin, non-core services. In addition, government regulations loom large on the health care landscape, including IRS prohibitions on private inurement, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the "Stark Law," and state regulations concerning the sale of community assets. Failure to comply with these regulations can lead to serious legal consequences, including intermediate sanctions, criminal penalties, exclusion from the Medicare program, or revocation of the not-for-profit status.

Services

• Fairness Opinions—Our analysts have issued hundreds of transaction fairness opinions. These opinions provide assurance to boards of directors that the consideration received in an M&A transaction is fair, from a financial point of view. A fairness opinion assists the board of directors in exercising its fiduciary responsibility to minority shareholders or (as in the case of a not-for-profit entity) to the community.
• Fair Market Value Opinions—Our analysts provide independent fair market value opinions. These opinions assist clients both in evaluating potential M&A transactions and in complying with regulations such as the Stark Act, the anti-kickback statute, and excess benefit and private inurement prohibitions.
• Adequate Consideration/Private Inurement Opinions—Our analysts provide independent opinions to not-for-profit entities to attest that the consideration received in a transaction (whether cash, assets, or services) is commensurate with the value of the consideration transferred.
• Litigation Support and Expert Testimony—Our analysts have developed lost profits/economic damages models to assist health care providers-and their legal counsel-in litigation related to intellectual property infringement, wrongful death, antitrust allegations, breach of contract, federal income taxation, private inurement, and other disputed matters.
• Forensic Accounting and Economic Analysis—Our analysts have worked with legal counsel for major health care clients in complex criminal and civil litigation involving health care reimbursement programs.
• Reasonableness of Compensation Analyses/Opinions—Our analysts develop independent reasonableness of executive/physician compensation opinions to assist both public/private health care companies and not-for-profit organizations in fulfilling their responsibilities with regard to corporate governance, income taxation, and private inurement issues.
• Financial Statement Reporting—Our analysts estimate the fair value of intangible assets/ intellectual property and fractional ownership interests in joint ventures, partnerships, LLCs and other corporate forms for financial reporting purposes.
• Fair Rental Value/"Under Arrangement" Opinions—Our analysts have completed a wide range of fair rental value studies, including "per click" arrangements, and other "under arrangement" studies regarding the fair market value of facilities, goods, and services.