What are the Benefits of a Group Medical Practice for doctors?

For a lot of doctors when they decide to go into private practice, there is a question of whether to go into a group medical practice or start a solo medical practice.

Group medical practices continue to form as an effective strategy for meeting the evolving demands of an increasingly complex health care market.

A group medical practice is typically either a single-specialty and multispecialty practice. Single-specialty practice is when two or more physicians provide patients with one specific type of A multispecialty group practice is offers various types of medical specialty care within one organization.

Some distinct advantages of a group medical practice are the increased financial security and a better control of lifestyle.

Because of the larger number of physicians and increased size of the patient base, group medical practices are usually better able to accept and manage financial risk than solo practices. Group practices may also be able to provide more employee benefits than are feasible in a solo practice, although often less than what may be available in employed physician organizations.

Consultant Susan Madden, writing for Physicians Practice believes the benefits are security of group medical practices are extremely valuable. “Practices are able to retain their autonomy while achieving efficiencies of scale that help to decrease costs. For example, several of our clients’ medical malpractice insurance rates went down because there are more physicians to dilute risk, employee payroll costs and healthcare benefits become cheaper, and practices are able to secure better prices from suppliers.”

Group practices also usually have the resources to manage the administrative tasks associated with running a practice, relieving the individual provider from the need to do this alone.

Additionally, the increased number of physicians in a group medical practice spreads the burden of covering clinical care in the hospital, at nights, and on weekends across a greater number of people, allowing more flexibility in scheduling relative to a solo practice.


However it is important to remember that with a larger base of physicians working under one roof, there can be a contention of medical diagnosis.

According to Wayne Lipton, founder and managing partner of Concierge Choice Physicians “One of the biggest complaints many physicians have after joining large medical systems is that they lose control over what they believe is the best way to care for patients. Even something as basic as referrals may no longer be at the physician’s sole discretion.”