Physician Migration Toward Hospital Employment

• Main Author: Don Urbanowicz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Joint Implant Surgery & Research Foundation 2012-08-01
• Series: Reconstructive Review
• Online Access: https://reconstructivereview.org/ojs/index.php/rr/article/view/21

A growing number of physicians are abandoning small private practice and becoming direct employees of large hospital systems. The latest signs of the continued migration came from a number of surveys and reports generated over the past twelve months. An early 2011 Medical Group Management Association survey found that the share of physician practices that were hospital owned increased to 55% in 2010 – up from 50% in 2008 and approximately 30% in 2003. In addition, a large US-physician recruiting firm said the share of its doctor searches that were for positions with hospitals reached 51% for the 12 months ending in March of 2011, up from 45% from a year earlier and 19% in 2004. Concurrently, the number of searches for physician groups and partnerships dropped. Another national survey of 2,400 physicians found that nearly 3 out of 4 were planning on retiring, working part-time, closing their practices to new patients, becoming employed and/or seeking nonclinical jobs in the next 1 to 3 years. Studies conducted in late 2011 found that 70% of national hospitals and health systems plan to employ more physicians over the next one to three years, while 67% of hospitals and health systems are seeing more requests from independent physician groups about employment opportunities. The data follows another late 2011 report that showed 32% of first-year residents surveyed said they prefer to be employed by a hospital – up from 22% in 2008.