Dr. Paul Jeffords and his colleagues at Atlanta-based Resurgens Orthopaedics were worried about their ability to survive financially, even though their independent orthopedic practice was the largest in Georgia, with nearly 100 physicians.

They nervously watched other physician practices sell out entirely to large hospital systems and health insurers. They refused to consider doing that. “It was an arms race,” Jeffords said, “and we knew we had to do something different if we wanted to remain independent and strong and offer good quality of care.”

So, in December 2021, Resurgens sold a 60% share in United Musculoskeletal Partners, their own management company, to Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a large New York-based private equity firm known as Welsh Carson. Although details of the sale were not disclosed, physician-shareholders in deals like this typically each receive a multimillion-dollar cash payout, plus the potential for subsequent big payouts each time the practice

In March, a Frontier Airlines flight was headed from Phoenix to Las Vegas when a female passenger stopped breathing. The flight attendant yelled in the cabin for help.

A passenger who was trained as a wilderness first responder, Seth Coley, jumped into action and found the woman was unresponsive and had a weak pulse. Coley dug through the plane’s medical kit but couldn’t find an oropharyngeal airway, a tool that was supposed to be there and that he needed to help the woman breathe. Instead, he cleared the airway by manipulating her neck.

Afterward, Coley sent a message to Denver-based Frontier Airlines via an online customer service form: “I saved somebody’s life on one of your flights,” he wrote. “I would like to speak about the medical kit you guys have on your flights. You are missing some very valuable and simple things. She almost died.”

Americans are flying at