Modern health systems as we know them emerged in the 19th century. Before then, standardized healthcare didn’t exist, and physicians largely practiced independently. Nowadays, more healthcare is shifting to a hospital environment and away from smaller, independent practices that cannot compete with larger health systems.
That shift isn’t likely to stop any time soon. Understanding physician practices is the key to grasping the expansion of the healthcare system as well as the opportunities and challenges those in the public health industry face.
How do physician practices serve the public?
There is a significant variety of physician practice options. Each setting creates different environments, resources, and other features to physicians, patients, and staff. Along with this, they come with changing levels of autonomy and associated requirements for specialization and other skills.
The most common types of practice settings are:
- solo
- group
- hospital-based
- partnership
- association
- HMO
Let’s take a deeper dive into the 3 most common types:
Solo practice
Private solo practice is the traditional medical environment in which physicians build and run practices. The physician’s primary responsibility is attracting new patients and administering a staff to support clinical as well as non-clinical responsibilities.
Physicians need other clinical healthcare professionals such as nurses, nurse practitioners, and assistants. Their non-clinical staff tackle responsibilities such as coding, finance, clinical documentation, health information management, employment regulations, and more.
A solo practice is a small business. It provides the most autonomy for physicians. They choose their hours, the professionals they employ, who they contract with, and how they treat patients. Private practices give physicians the most control over their financial destiny. When it comes to costs and access to resources, this same autonomy can make it difficult for private practices to compete with larger systems.
Group practice
Many new physicians transition from medical school and post-residency to join group medical practices. Group practice size ranges widely from as few as 3 to as many as hundreds of physicians.
The two basic types of group practice are single-specialty and multi-specialty. Multi-specialty groups employ a mixture of physicians and specialists, including surgeons, and provide continuity of care in a single facility.
Physician groups can provide more stability along with clinical backup and administrative support. However, they do have their share of issues. These often include competition, questions of the path to partnership, and workplace issues such as unequal access to facility resources.
Hospital-based practices
During a 5-year study period, hospital-acquired physician practices increased from 35,700 in 2012 to more than 80,000 in 2018. These are some of the most significant changes across the healthcare industry. Less than one-quarter of all physicians worked in a hospital at the start of the study. The number has now risen to 44%.
Hospital-based physicians work either in hospital departments or hospital-owned practices. In either setting, physicians may perform formerly hospital-based services, including radiology, emergency medicine, and anesthesiology. A hospital may also own group practices that employ additional primary care providers and specialists.
Hospital-based practices provide a range of advantages, including dependable physician compensation, an established patient network, support from other physicians and staff, and administrative assistance. However, physicians have less autonomy to make choices regarding care, scheduling, and others restrictions that can affect quality of care and morale.
How can Harmony consultants serve in physician practices?
As a consultant for Harmony, you can be a part of making healthcare smarter while growing your career in areas such as:
- health information management
- coding
- finance and accounting
- outpatient clinical documentation
- revenue cycle management
- and more
The team here at Harmony works with physician practices across the country. If you’re ready to explore opportunities in non-clinical healthcare in this healthcare setting, we can help you make that happen.
Learn more about possibilities through Harmony here.
How can Harmony benefit physician practices?
Independent, individual practices will always exist. They deliver the vital, personalized health care that patients need. The personal touch of family doctors is easily lost when practices are not staffed with experts who can tackle duties such as claims, coding, and revenue integrity. Not having those experts can be a detriment to patient satisfaction and care and can lead to physician burnout.
Here at Harmony, we understand the challenges physician practices are facing. As part of such an organization, you and your team provide care to patients with a wide variety of needs. We know that includes having highly qualified team members who improve patient care and experience outside of clinical needs such as:
- Outpatient/ambulatory clinical documentation improvement
- Revenue integrity and revenue cycle management
- Audit and validation
- Health information management
- And more
We’re here to support your practice with interim staffing and consulting solutions. These solutions work behind the scenes to help you create – and maintain – a healthier population.
Learn more about how we can empower your physician practice here.
