The Weekly Checkup: Week of April 6-10, 2026

Issue #1 | Week of April 6-10, 2026

Welcome to the first issue of The Weekly Checkup, covering healthcare M&A, businesses for sale, and valuation insights.

Quick intro: I'm Will Hamilton. I run Scope Research, where my team tracks every healthcare M&A transaction we can find, and HealthFMV, where we perform independent valuations of healthcare businesses and services for regulatory, M&A, lending, tax, and dispute purposes. Between the two, I spend most of my days looking at healthcare deals from every angle: the press release, the legal filing, the bond disclosure, the CON application, the Medicare cost report, and the SEC 8-K.

That first one is where most stop. This newsletter is an attempt to go a bit further.

Here's what you'll get every Tuesday:

If that sounds useful, stick around… If not, no hard feelings.

48 announced healthcare transactions crossed my desk this week, split evenly between Services and Technology at 24 apiece. Six platform deals, 42 add-ons, which is a healthier platform-creation rate than we've seen recently. A few things caught my attention. Dental continued its relentless consolidation, with Bridge Dental Group announcing two acquisitions in a single release on Friday. Podiatry showed up twice in one week, with Upperline Health picking up Coastal Podiatry Associates and UW Health bringing University Podiatry Associates in-house. Big pharma kept buying small biotech. And Chewy, of all companies, bought a venture-backed veterinary chain.

Chewy, the online pet retailer, announced the acquisition of Modern Animal, a venture-backed veterinary chain that raised more than $100 million over its lifetime. Chewy is positioning the deal as a move toward a "fully integrated healthcare ecosystem."

My take: The retail-to-healthcare-delivery playbook has a rough track record on the human side. Amazon / One Medical, CVS / Oak Street, and Walgreens / VillageMD all ran into the same wall: clinical operations are structurally different from retail operations, and the margin math rarely survives integration. What makes the Chewy deal potentially different is asymmetry of scale. Veterinary is still fragmented, the largest PE-backed platforms each hold low single-digit market share, and Chewy has a direct relationship with a meaningful share of U.S. pet owners already. That's a different starting position than CVS had with Oak Street. Whether it leads to a better outcome is the open question.

Two biotech transactions in the same week where big pharma wrote checks for smaller public companies with de-risked clinical data. Gilead called the Tubulis platform "best-in-class next-generation" ADC technology. Neurocrine is adding Soleno to its endocrinology and rare disease portfolio.

My take: The pattern in pharma M&A right now is remarkably consistent. Mid-stage or later-stage clinical data, a niche indication with limited direct competition, and a public biotech with a strained balance sheet equals an acquisition candidate. If you advise biotech sellers with assets in oncology, endocrinology, rare disease, or cardiometabolic, the window to have the strategic conversation is now. These deals don't get cheaper for buyers when a dozen other biotechs start shopping at the same time, and they don't get more expensive for sellers than right after a strong data readout. ADCs specifically have been a relentlessly active category for the last 18 months, and the comp set continues to improve for sellers.

Bridge Dental Group announced both deals in a single release. Foothill is general dentistry. Peak is oral surgery. The combined move gives Bridge a general-plus-specialty footprint in what appears to be a new geographic market.

My take: Dental DSO consolidation is one of the most mature roll-ups in healthcare services, and it continues to generate steady deal flow. What's notable here is the structure. Announcing a GP practice and a specialty practice together signals a shift in playbook. You're buying the referral source and the referral destination simultaneously, which compresses the usual multi-year build and locks in internal referral economics from day one. Sellers in markets that attract this kind of buyer should expect tighter timelines and more sophisticated structures. Valuing the specialty piece separately from the GP piece is also essential here, because they trade at different multiples and carry different risk profiles.

Two podiatry transactions in a single week. Upperline Health is the dominant PE-backed podiatry platform in the U.S. UW Health's acquisition is a health system insourcing its podiatry referrals.

My take: Podiatry is one of the last specialties that has not yet been heavily rolled up, and for good reason. Payer mix is difficult (heavy Medicare, meaningful DME revenue with its own reimbursement quirks), the physician pipeline is narrow, and unit economics depend on a mix of office procedures, DME, and surgical volumes that looks different from practice to practice. Two deals in one week doesn't make a trend, but Upperline's continued buildout combined with health system interest is a reminder that consolidation is happening even in specialties that don't fit the standard DSO or MSO playbook. For owners of profitable podiatry practices with a clean book and diversified revenue, the buyer universe is wider today than it was 18 months ago.

Smaller deal that flew under the radar. Forian, a publicly traded healthcare data and analytics company, is being taken private by a consortium led by Max Wygod. The deal price of $68 million implies a multiple of 2.25x revenue for a business that is only marginally profitable at the moment.

My take: The public markets have been unkind to sub-scale healthcare data businesses for the better part of two years, and private buyers have noticed. If you operate a vertical healthcare data asset in the $20-50 million million revenue range, the strategic calculus for remaining public is weaker than it has been in a decade. Expect more of these take-private situations through year-end.

I tracked 43 additional transactions this week across pharmacy (Pharma Fusion closed two), physician practices (dermatology, cardiology, anesthesiology, gastroenterology, primary care, and pediatrics all saw activity), hospitals (Orlando Health / RMC Health System and Parkview / Witham), HealthTech, and devices. Let me know if you’re interested in the complete list.

Every week I'll highlight a handful of healthcare businesses currently listed for sale, with a practitioner's read on the financials and the deal structure. These come from broker networks, online marketplaces, and our own intake. No affiliation, no referral fees.

Location: Midwest (state undisclosed) | Asking Price: $24.0M | 2024 EBITDA: $4.0M | EV / EBITDA: 6.0x

Seller is pursuing a majority recapitalization at approximately 6x EBITDA with a stated goal of doubling unit count over 2-3 years by acquiring nearby practices. No revenue figure disclosed in the listing.

My take: 6x on a $4 million EBITDA dental platform is a price, not a valuation. Sophisticated dental buyers (meaning established DSOs and PE-backed platforms) are typically paying more for platforms of this scale, with potentially higher multiples for markets they haven't entered or specialty-heavy practices. The fact that this is coming to market as a majority recap at 6x suggests one of three things: the seller is being advised conservatively, the "EBITDA" figure hasn't been normalized in the way sophisticated buyers would require, or there's something in the book that depresses the strategic multiple (concentration risk, declining same-store metrics, specialty mix that doesn't fit platform needs). A buyer who does the right normalization work will probably find themselves paying more than 6x on a properly prepared P&L.

Location: Florida | Asking Price: $14.7M | Revenue: $8.2M | Cash Flow: $1.8M | CF Margin: 22% | Price / Revenue: 1.8x | Price / Cash Flow: 8.0x

I/DD residential services combined with a home health company licensed by Florida AHCA. Group homes are licensed by Florida's Agency for Persons with Disabilities. 24-hour nursing care capability comparable to an Intermediate Care Facility.

My take: The cash flow margin of 22% is realistic for I/DD residential services and higher than most home health operators see standalone, which suggests the residential book is driving economics. The 8.0x cash flow ask is above where we typically see I/DD residential of this size trade in the secondary market, but there are two factors that can support the premium: Florida I/DD licensure is meaningfully difficult to obtain and transfer, and the combination of residential I/DD with home health creates a continuum-of-care asset that a sophisticated buyer could expand. Three diligence priorities for a serious buyer: (1) payer mix, because I/DD services in Florida are predominantly Medicaid-funded through the iBudget waiver and the margin profile depends on current waiver rates, (2) license transferability under Florida's change of ownership process, because this is not automatic and the timeline can meaningfully affect deal economics, and (3) the revenue split between the residential and home health books, because they value differently and a buyer should allocate purchase price accordingly.

Location: Hoffman Estates, IL (Cook County) | Asking Price: $6.0M | Revenue: $3.3M | Cash Flow: $1.3M | CF Margin: 38% | Price / Revenue: 1.8x | Price / Cash Flow: 4.7x

Established 2005. OB/GYN practice with high-risk pregnancy, infertility, menopause management, and minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery. MedSpa division adds Botox, laser hair removal, weight loss, skin tightening, branded skincare products, and a membership program.

My take: The 38% cash flow margin is strong for an OB/GYN practice and reflects the medspa contribution. The 4.7x cash flow ask is below where a buyer with medspa platform aspirations would likely price this if it were shopped broadly. The central questions are clinician dependency and earnings normalization. OB/GYN revenue, particularly the surgical component, typically does not survive the selling physician's departure in the same way that medspa revenue does. A buyer should value the two lines separately and structure the transaction with meaningful contingent consideration on the physician side. Worth noting: Illinois's Corporate Practice of Medicine rules are strict, and any non-physician buyer will need to structure through a MSO (a large part of my practice at HealthFMV is performing fair market valuation of these management fees). If the seller is approached by a first-time buyer without healthcare-specific legal counsel, the deal will stall on CPOM compliance before it gets to diligence.

Location: Scottsdale, AZ | Asking Price: $1.05M | Revenue: $1.1M | Cash Flow: $511K | CF Margin: 47% | Price / Revenue: 1.0x | Price / Cash Flow: 2.1x

Founded 2020. Primary care combined with holistic and integrative services (regenerative medicine, IV and ozone therapy, bio-identical hormones). 7 employees. Owner retiring.

My take: This is a micro-deal and needs to be evaluated on micro-deal logic. 2.1x cash flow is cheap if the book is transferable, and expensive if it's not. "Owner retiring" on a five-year-old cash-pay heavy integrative medicine practice should raise a specific concern: how much of the patient base is loyal to the practice versus loyal to the physician? Integrative medicine patients are typically highly relationship-driven, and cash-pay patients have zero switching cost. A buyer should require a transition period with the retiring physician under contract, a detailed patient retention analysis, and a review of the cash-pay versus insurance-reimbursed revenue split. The $511k cash flow figure is also likely to include significant owner compensation that may or may not be replaceable for the asking price. This is most likely a solo-buyer or possibly a small regional group deal.

Location: Maryland | Asking Price: $2.5M | Revenue: $5.1M | Cash Flow: $622K | CF Margin: 12% | Price / Revenue: 0.5x | Price / Cash Flow: 4.0x

DTC manufacturer and distributor of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy devices. Partner option available.

My take: PEMF therapy occupies a regulatory gray area. Most consumer PEMF devices are either FDA 510(k)-cleared for specific indications or marketed as general wellness products outside the device classification, and the diligence question for a serious buyer is which category this company's SKUs fall into. That matters because the enterprise value follows directly: a cleared device business with defensible labeling claims trades very differently than a wellness product that operates on FDA enforcement discretion. The 12% cash flow margin on $5.1 million of revenue is low for a DTC e-commerce health product, which typically runs 20-30%+ at scale, and that delta either reflects customer acquisition cost loading (which is fixable) or competitive pricing pressure (which is structural). The 0.5x revenue multiple looks cheap in isolation but is probably appropriate given the regulatory and margin questions. A strategic buyer who already has FDA-cleared device infrastructure could rationalize this acquisition at the ask. A first-time buyer should walk in with a regulatory consultant alongside their QofE provider.

That's it for Issue #1. Some asks:

See you next Tuesday.

Will Hamilton, CVA | Founder, Scope Research and HealthFMV

The Weekly Checkup is published every Tuesday morning. It is written for general informational purposes. Engagements through Scope Research or HealthFMV require a separate agreement.