Hospitals seek to employ more physicians as smaller practices disappear.

A commentary published in Physicians News Digest states that current long-term trends favor continued growth of hospital-owned physician practices and changing compensation models. Instead of large salaries and bonuses that were not supported (and in some cases could not be supported) by productivity, compensation is refocusing on strategy and productivity. The author states that factors driving the new model from the physicians’ side include stagnation of reimbursement, a reduction in ancillary revenue, rising practice expenses, and a greater need for scale.
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An article in the Nov. 2008 issue of AAOS Now examined the issue of changing practice patterns in orthopaedic surgery.
Read "Is the private practice orthopaedist disappearing?"…