Practice size: How many doctors are in the office?

It’s no secret that the last few decades have presented economic challenges for small, independent medical practices.

A new study puts some of those difficulties in perspective with a numerical analysis about the size of physicians’ practices.

In May, the American Medical Association (AMA) published “Physician Practice Characteristics in 2024: Private Practices Account for Less Than Half of Physicians in Most Specialties,” a new Policy Research Perspectives paper. Author Carol K. Kane, PhD, analyzed data from AMA’s Physician Practice Benchmark Survey.

The paper has data about how physicians’ practices are changing in size over time. There still are small practices out there, but the percentage of them is shrinking. From 2012 to 2024, there have been measurable differences in the declining number of the smallest practices, those with five or fewer doctors, and growth of large practices with 50 or more physicians.

This slideshow presents figures about the distribution of physicians by practice size. All figures come from Kane’s analysis.

Additional coverage: Independent practice losing ground to hospital, corporate, private equity ownership — a slideshow examining percentages of physicians in private practice by specialty