AHLA Health Care Transactions & McDermott HealthEx Converge in Nashville
Jarrard Inc. Vice President for Strategic Partnerships Ellis Metz was our man in action at two primo healthcare conferences in Music City, USA, last week. Here’s his take from both AHLA Transactions and McDermott HealthEx.
WHEN & WHERE: Nashville, AHLA Transactions held May 5-7 and McDermott HealthEx held May 6-9
THEME: Predictably Unpredictable
Conference season reached a crescendo last week, at least by the sheer number of healthcare attorneys walking around Nashville. That’s thanks to the combination of the annual AHLA Transactions conference and the inaugural McDermott HealthEx, a week-long, multi-sector event held by the most recent law firm to set up an office in the Healthcare City of Nashville.
For the sake of Business, I hit both conferences and every cocktail reception I could gain entry to, to confirm the mood and outlook of dealmakers.
To borrow from Dickens, when it comes to hospital deals, we are apparently “in the best of times and the worst of times.” Headlines decrying Q1’s “record low” in deal volume were acknowledged but hardly seemed to reflect the reality of the busy attorneys attending AHLA Transactions. Many reported working alongside proactive, growing enterprises and systems desperate for partners to save their struggling hospitals. At the same time, everyone described deals taking a few extra beats to come together due to the daily deluge of unpredictable reports coming out of Washington. Common phrases included “stop-and-go,” “skittish” and “just so damn slow.”
Nevertheless, the AHLA crowd was highly upbeat about the second half of 2025. “At some point, the unpredictability becomes predictable, and that’s when you can get to work,” one attorney told me.
Meanwhile, further up Broadway in Nashville, much of the optimism seemed to spring directly from the unpredictability surrounding our current macro environment. As the content at HealthEx progressed into sectors with higher levels of PE activity (specifically the Behavioral Forum and PPM + ASC Symposium), healthcare investors were doing what they do best – identifying areas of opportunity amid the haze of market uncertainty. Several agreed with a panelist who described “a lot of buyer appetite at the moment.” One investment banker told me, “We have the fullest deal pipeline in our firm’s history.”
The only wet blanket at the MWE party seemed to be the prospect of Medicaid cuts (though most attendees agreed to leave them unacknowledged in the corner of the room). Many behavioral providers said they were proceeding cautiously until the federal budget becomes clearer in September. One leader at a non-profit behavioral company told me their CEO had sent a company-wide email urging staff to contact their representatives about not cutting the federal program.
Craig Walker, managing director with Piper Sandler & Co., put an especially positive spin on the current market dynamics. He maintained that since healthcare services are not likely to be impacted by any global trade war, many investors believe now is a great time to buy into the sector. Walker added that investors should have plenty of funding and motivation to get those deals closed, given the relative slowness of recent years.
All in all, this partygoer left feeling surprisingly bullish on the healthcare deal market for health systems and PE-backed services companies in the back half of 2025.
