The proportion of physicians in solo and two-physician practices decreased significantly from 40.7 percent in 1996-97 to 32.5 percent in 2004-05, according to a new national study released Aug. 16 by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).
However, despite the shift away from the smallest practices, physicians are not moving to multispecialty practices, the study found. The proportion of physicians in multispecialty practices also decreased--from 30.9 percent to 27.5 percent between 1998-99 and 2004-05. The study results showed that physicians increasingly are practicing in mid-sized, single-specialty groups of six to 50 physicians (17.6 percent of physicians in 2004-05 versus 13.1 percent in 1996-97).
Changes in physician practice setting and organization have important implications for the practice of medicine and the care patients receive. Some experts believe that large, multispecialty practices are the organizational structure with the greatest potential to provide consistently high-quality care.
