[Comment] Hospitals as tenants: the rise of real estate investment trusts in health-care delivery

00:00 - 31 Mar 2025

As financial actors including private equity funds increasingly buy and sell hospitals, nursing homes, and physician practices, real estate investment trusts (REITs) have emerged as a form of financial ownership in which the REIT owns the real estate properies of health-care facilities and health-care providers pay rent to the REIT.1 Given the rise of REITs in health care and their expanding global influence, policy makers should take a proactive stance towards regulating health-care REITs to disincentivise short-term profiteering and encourage long-term health-care investments that promote patient access and health-care quality.