Physicians are continuing to shift away from private practice, with more now working in hospital- or private equity-owned settings, according to the American Medical Association’s Physician Practice Benchmark Report published May 29.
Here are 10 things to know, pulled from the AMA analysis and other recent surveys:
1. In 2024, 42.2% of physicians were working in private practice, a significant drop from 60.1% in 2012.
2. Private practice now represents less than half of physicians in most medical specialties, with participation ranging from 30.7% in cardiology to 46.9% in radiology.
3. Some specialties still maintain a majority of physicians in private practice. These include orthopedic surgery (54%), ophthalmology (70.4%), and other surgical subspecialties (51.2%).
4. Conversely, the share of physicians working in hospital-owned practices rose to 34.5% in 2024 — an 11 percentage point increase from 23.4% in 2012.
5. Direct hospital employment also grew, with 12% of physicians employed or contracted directly by hospitals in 2024, which is more than double the 5.6% recorded in 2012.
6. In 2024, 6.5% of physicians reported working in private equity-owned practices, up from approximately 4.5% in both 2020 and 2022, according to the report.
7. Among independent physicians who sold their practices in the past decade to hospitals, private equity firms, or insurers, the leading reason cited was inadequate payment rates (considered important or very important by 70.8%). Other common reasons included the need for access to expensive resources (64.9%) and the desire to better handle payer regulations and administrative demands (63.6%).
8. Another new report published May 13 in the Journal of the Society of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons suggests that while employment trends are shifting, private practice still remains the predominant model. As of 2022, 55% of U.S. physicians were working in private practice — a modest decline of just 3 percentage points from 58% in 2013.
9. Hospital-employed physicians increased by 33% between 2013 and 2022, growing from approximately 157,000 to over 205,000. By comparison, private practice employment rose by 17%, indicating that hospitals are hiring at nearly twice the rate.
10. Overall, the number of employed physicians grew 22% over the decade — from about 620,000 in 2013 to more than 760,000 in 2022.
