Private Practices: How to Survive Alongside the Trend of Hospital Employment

There is so much press regarding the trend towards hospital employment, but for those physicians dedicated to a private practice model, how do you survive amongst all of the other local physicians becoming employed by the larger hospital systems?  As more and more physicians take positions in hospital groups, independent practitioners face an array of challenges. If you are a physician with a practice in an area where the hospitals have acquired many of the local physicians, you may be finding it increasingly difficult to survive.  To counterbalance the power of hospitals, private practice physicians and their partners can form a larger single-specialty group, an independent practice association (IPA), or some other clinical integration vehicle. As hospital competition grows, physicians in private models are finding other options to remain competitive and profitable.  Some options private practice physicians have in order to compete with local employed physicians are IPAs, physician-hospital organizations, and group practices without walls.  Smaller practices can unite to leverage themselves against larger, employed systems.  There will always be a place for the private practice physician, and private groups can remain profitable in every employment climate, although they may have to evolve with the times.   Read more in the MedScape article by clicking here: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/765250