“Doctors used to pride themselves on their willingness and ability to stand solo. They owned their practices, worked brutal hours and called the shots. But now they’re running for the shelter of health systems, where they draw salaries, work scheduled shifts and accept decisions from above.”

While this article does highlight some of the reasons that private practice physicians are selling their practices to health systems and hospitals, there are bigger reasons for their decision.

First, with health care reimbursement continuing to decrease and health insurance plans (private and public sector) being cut back, patients are going to the doctor less often. Secondly, to be blunt, most physicians are not very good businessmen/businesswomen. They may know medicine very well, but business? Not so much.

Powerfeedback works with many medical practices (physician owned and hospital operated) and we consistently see the reasons why they are experience ™revenue leakage and practice degradation. While “brutal hours” and dealing with insurance companies are valid issues, at the end of the day, they are no different than any other regulated industry that relies on customers (a.k.a. patients) and third party payers.

While I see this trend of private practice operators selling to larger health systems and hospitals continuing, this will also create a bigger gap in our healthcare system that prevents patients from seeing the physician that they would prefer. As a result, concierge private practices will continue to grow and prosper.