Yeah, I meant to start a thread on them awhile back, but never got around to it.
I was in contact with their COO a couple of years ago for some job openings. I only had e-mail/phone discussions, I didn't bother with an on-site interview. Pathlink is a large national pathology corporation with hospital contracts in many states. They function as a PE firm that does exactly what you described: buy up contracts from outgoing pp or acquire them from physician-employed models of healthcare systems. They are certainly growing and have snatched up more of these contracts over the last few years. Once they acquire laboratory contracts with said hospitals, they recruit pathologists to be employed by directly by them to be staffed at the hospitals they have contracts with.
To get to brass tacks, their offers are pretty crappy. As of 2 years ago, for non-medical directorship full-time positions, they were offering $250K, 4 weeks vacay, and standard corporate 401K retirement. Note: this was spring 2021. Maybe they have given a slight bump since then due to inflation and the job market slightly improving; but, I can't imagine it being that much different. Remember, there is no partnership or profit-sharing. You are an employee of a corporation, same as if you were to work for Quest, Kaiser, or HCA. It's a flat salary for X-number of years with maybe a 2-5% increase when it's time for contract renewal to account for inflation/COL.
Because you would be an employee of their PE firm (similar to being an employee of Quest, LabCorp, NeoGenomics, etc), they will skim off the top from your work to sustain the profitability of their corporation. Granted, almost every commercial lab will have to, including being a POD lab pathologist. But where the differences come into play are how much you are getting compensated relative to the amount of work you're putting in and what your overall compensation is compared to fair market value for the field. Pathlink is below average when comparing the options.
As far as their reputation, I have no idea. I do not know anyone who works for one of their hospitals who can speak of the work environment. I also wonder what is it that they provide to CEOs and admin of hospitals that a private group can't do just as well? Because, once the lab contract is handed over to such PE firms, this squeezes out the opportunity for private pathology groups permanently. AFAIK, they don't offer testing for micro, molecular, or other CP testing at wholesale prices a la Quest. My hunch is that they have a team of former lab employees, billers/coders, etc. at their central hub which analyzes metrics of all their contracted laboratories nationwide. This metrics include revenue streams, collections, testing etc. in order to find ways to maximize profit which appeals just enough to hospital administrators to let Pathlink take over the reins.
They constantly pop up on pathoutlines with jobs all over the country. They won't advertise as 'Pathlink', though. If you see a domain name of 'ppenet.com', stay away. Their ads will simply say, "hospital-based practice is looking for...". Advertising as a "hospital-based practice" isn't technically false; but, misleading imo. This practice isn't part of an employed model under the hospital/healthcare system; and it certainly isn't private practice. They also advertise "highly competitive salary", which is absolutely false. If I see "highly competitive salary", that should at least be in the 80-90th percentile, which they are most definitely not. But, I can give them a reprieve on that, sorta. Putting "competitive salary" in an advertisement is almost boiler plate, whether true or false. No job is gonna get any takers if they advertise, "bottom 10th percentile of income"...lol.