Major jump in corporation-owned physician practices since pre-pandemic

Editor's Note

A report published by Avalere, titled “COVID-19’s Impact on Acquisitions of Physician Practices and Physician Employment 2019-2021,” revealed that the overall number of corporate-owned physician practices has grown by 84% since 2019, Becker’s ASC Review April 21 reports.

What this suggests, Becker’s noted, is an acceleration of corporate-driven acquisitions of private practices during the pandemic. Following is the percentage of physician practices that are corporate-owned in a January-to-January outlook since 2019:

• January 2019: 38.8 percent
• January 2020: 41.6 percent
• January 2021: 47.4 percent
• January 2022: 53.6 percent

 A June 2021 article from Fierce Healthcare, titled “Hospitals, corporations own nearly half of medical practices, spurred by COVID-19 disruption: report,” also brought attention to the trend, highlighting also that 7 in 10 physicians are employed by the acquiring corporations.