Physicians have a growing number of options when thinking about their careers and the type of practice where they want to work. Like anything, with options come benefits and drawbacks to each. Below are the most common types of medical practices and advantages and disadvantages. 

3 Most Common Types of Medical Practices

Group Practice

A group practice includes two or more physicians who provide care in the same facility. The support staff, expenses, and income are divided amongst the physicians in the group. These doctors may be all in the same specialty (pain management) or practice multiple specialties (primary care). The benefits of group practices is that the doctors will work shorter hours and have scheduled on-call coverage, along with access to more administrative assistance. Another benefit is that oftentimes, group practices offer employee benefits and financial assistance.  A few disadvantages include less freedom, limits on income, and the need to work with others on business decisions. This also means physicians have less personal visibility with their patients. 

Solo Practice

In a solo practice, a physician practices alone, usually with minimal administrative staff. This type of doctor wishes to wkr for themselves and manage their own practice. Benefits include individual freedom, ability to build close relationships with their patients, and create their own practice growth plan. However, there are some drawbacks to owning and managing your own practice. These include great financial responsibility, longer hours, and a greater business risk. It may also mean there is less business capital to utilize for growth. 

Hospital-Owned Practices

As mergers and acquisitions become more frequent, it is common for practices to be owned by a larger healthcare system. What this means is that financial responsibility and decisions fall on the shoulders of the hospital system. Benefits for a physician is that they work on a schedule, have access to a wider variety of technology, and have little-to-no business risk. Some of the disadvantages are that physicians lose a lot of personal relationships with patients, no little say in how the practice is run, and oftentimes have strict referral regulations. 

Expense Sharing

This is common when physicians want to remain independent, but share overhead costs with another physician. They maintain private patients and freedom for scheduling, but share in the costs of the practice. This also lowers the risk of the business and costs for administrative staff, which is shared between physicians. Downsides of expense sharing are similar to that of a solo practice. With this practice model, physicians need to be careful to disclose they are practicing independently from one another, or both could be held accountable if there is a malpractice case or any legal issues.