Fewer than half of physicians work in private practice

(HealthDay)—Less than half of physicians now work in private practice, according to a report released by the American Medical Association (AMA).

As part of the AMA Policy Research Perspective series, Carol K. Kane, Ph.D., used data collected from 3,500 U.S. physicians participating in the 2020 Physician Practice Benchmark Survey.

The analysis shows that in 2020, 49.1 percent of patient care physicians worked in physician-owned practices, down from 54 percent in the 2018 AMA survey. Nearly four in 10 patient care physicians worked either directly for a hospital or for a practice with at least partial hospital or health system ownership in 2020, while 9.3 percent of patient care physicians worked directly for a hospital. There was also acceleration of a pattern toward larger practice size, with the share of physicians in practices with at least 50 physicians increasing from 14.7 percent in 2018 to 17.2 percent in 2020. Of physicians in private practice, the most common business structures were limited liability companies (27.8 percent) and S corporations (24.7 percent), followed by C corporations (15 percent).

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