Thursday, October 4, 2007

Physician business ideas - Practice Size and Physician Employment Trends

According to the Center of Studying Health System Change, a Washington, D.C. think tank, finances and a desire for balanced life styles and regular hours, are driving physicians out of solo practice, into single specialty groups, and into salaried settings. One surprise is that the number of physicians in multispecialty groups, said by some to be the basis for a more rational health system, has dropped from 30.9% to 27.5%, a 3.4% decline.

Here’s the Center’s data showing the trends from 1996-1997 to 2004-2005, the later being the latest data available.

Doctors in Different Practice Group Sizes and and Employment Settings

1-2 physicians, 40.7% to 32.5%, down 8.2%

3-5 physicians, 12.2% to 9.7%, down 3.5%

6-50 physicians, 15.9% to 21.8%, up 5.9%

Single specialty, 13.1% to 17.6%, up 4.5%

Multispecialty, 30.9% to 27.5%, down 3.4%

Other*, 31.2% to 36.0%, up 4.8%

*Other includes physicians employed by medical schools, HMOs, hospitals, community health centers, freestanding clinics and independent contractors.

Does this information surprise you? How do you interpret its meaning? Does it reflect inevitable trends?

27 comments:

Unknown said...

This is some interesting data from CSHSC. FYI, I have an interview with their president , Paul Ginsburg, on my blog

I think this is a sad state of affairs, as we are relegating primary care to organizations that are largely focused on the sick (e.g., hospitals).

This is a continued loss of innovative, flexible providers who are closest to their patients-- the administrative and bureaucratic layers in the bigger practices create more insulation between doctor and patient. This will serve to reduce choice and continue the trend to restricting time with the provider.

I don't, however, think its inevitable, as consumers will rebel against paying so much for such limited time with their physicians, and new ways of paying for and delivering care will emerge. At that point the smaller providers will switch to new service-driven models more quickly and we'll see the large systems lose all those physicians they spent so much money to pull in. It'll be a replay of what happened in the 1990's.

Richard L. Reece, MD said...

Vijay:

Unfortunately, ss of now, big organizations (hospitals and big groups) rule to the detriment of flexible, innovative doctors close to patients in decntralized settings in the neighborhoods and on the streets. I'll look for your interview with Ginsburg on your blog.

Dick

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