Benefits of Group Medical Practices: Enhanced Care & Negotiation Power

Group medical practices have become the norm in medicine in much of the United States. Indeed, patients are hard-pressed to find solo practitioners in many areas of the country. Three of the benefits of medical groups over individual practices include the ability to leverage more patients for insurance negotiations, better patient care, and improved lifestyles.

Insurance Leverage

• When doctors sign contracts with insurance companies, they negotiate payment rates based in part on the number of clients that doctor can see. With a group medical practice, the number of patients under discussion increases, thus improving the physician group's leveraging position.

Patient Care

• The American Medical Association, or AMA, released a study in 2003 in which doctors reported that they believed better patient care was one result of the increase in group medical practices. These doctors believed they could improve patient care by having multiple medical professionals with whom to consult on patient care.

Lifestyle

• Doctors in physician groups are able to work fewer hours and be harried less of those hours because they are able to share the patient and administrative loads with other medical providers.