More than half — 68 percent — of physicians still own or have an ownership stake in a practice, but that number is likely to drastically drop soon, according to data from Jackson Healthcare.
That's because less than half of those physicians say they plan to remain in private practice. The other half, according to Jackson Healthcare's "Trend Watch: Physician Practice Acquisition" report, are actively or passively seeking to sell, preparing to retire or just close their doors.
Nearly half of all physicians planning to sell fell in the following specialties:
• Internal medicine subspecialists — 23 percent
• Primary care/general physicians — 14 percent
• Surgeons — 12 percent
Each subset of physicians is looking to sell their practices for different reasons.
• Internal medicine subspecialists cited reimbursement cuts (79 percent) and the cost of maintaining a practice (64 percent) as why they wanted to sell.
• Primary care and generalist physicians want to spend less time working and more time in private life (53 percent). They also cited healthcare reform complexity (42 percent) and reimbursement cuts (42 percent).
• 89 percent of surgeons looking to sell cited the cost of running a practice as the reason.
Survey data is based on responses from 536 physicians to an online survey Sept. 12 through Sept. 27.
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