Healthcare diligence runs everything an ordinary business sale runs and then adds three streams of its own: how the business bills, how it is licensed, and how it handles patient information. Each can change the price and each can narrow the buyer pool.
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Billing and coding
Coding practice, documentation supporting claims, denial and appeal history, any audits or recoupment demands, and whether revenue recognized has actually been collected. This is where the largest exposures sit, because an incorrect coding pattern repeated over years is quantifiable and becomes an indemnity or a price adjustment.
Licensing and credentialing
Facility and practitioner licenses with their transfer requirements, payer credentialing for the new owner, accreditation status, and in many states the rules on who may own a practice. Credentialing timelines are a real constraint on the closing date and belong in the timetable rather than in the final fortnight.
Patient information and consent
How records are stored, who can reach them, what happens to them on a transfer, and whether the required agreements are in place with anyone who processes data on your behalf. Buyers ask because the obligations follow the practice, and the file for this stream is cheap to prepare and awkward to assemble in a hurry.
Questions people ask about healthcare due diligence
Does an asset sale avoid the billing history?
Not entirely. Some exposures follow the provider identifiers and the people, and the buyer will look regardless of structure.
How long does credentialing take?
Long enough to matter. Start it as soon as a buyer is chosen rather than after the agreement is signed.
Who runs healthcare diligence?
Specialist advisers on larger deals; on smaller ones the buyer's accountant and lawyer with a coding specialist brought in for the billing review.
Should I get a coding review before selling?
Where billing patterns are unusual or the practice has never been reviewed, yes. It finds a quantifiable exposure while there is still time to correct the pattern and price it, rather than meeting it under exclusivity.