Physician practice consolidation continues to accelerate as hospitals, insurers and private equity firms expand their footprints across the U.S. healthcare system.
Here are 50 statistics from 2025 studies that illustrate how physician M&A is reshaping care delivery, competition and physician economics.
1. In 2024, 42.2% of physicians worked in private practice, down from 60.1% in 2012, according to the American Medical Association’s Physician Practice Benchmark Report.
2. Private practice now represents less than half of physicians in most medical specialties.
3. Private practice participation ranges from 30.7% in cardiology to 46.9% in radiology.
4. Nearly half of physician practices were hospital-owned by 2016, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study. Hospital ownership reached 47.2% of all physician practices by the end of that study period.
5. Between 2008 and 2016, the share of physician practices acquired by hospitals increased by 71.5%.
6. Two years after a hospital acquisition, prices rose 3.3% for hospital services.
7. Over the same period, physician service prices increased 15.1% post-merger.
8. Those price increases were accompanied by no measurable improvements in quality, according to the NBER study.
9. In 2024, at least 47% of physicians were employed by or affiliated with hospital systems, up from about 30% in 2012, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
10. Corporate entities, including insurers and private equity-backed companies, employed 23% of physicians in 2024, up from 15% in 2019.
11. About 6.5% of physicians worked in private equity-owned practices in 2024, up from 4.5% in 2022.
12. In specialties such as gastroenterology, dermatology and ophthalmology, private equity involvement exceeds 30%.
13. Hospital-physician consolidation reached 66% in the Midwest in 2024.
14. Consolidation reached 58% in rural areas the same year.
15. Hospital-physician consolidation is associated with 17% higher commercial office-visit prices, based on studies from 2010-2016.
16. Consolidation is linked to 3% to 5% higher inpatient hospital prices, based on 2009-2015 data.
17. Physician prices for childbirth services in OB-GYN rose by about 15% following consolidation.
18. All 10 of the largest U.S. insurers have acquired physician practices or management services organizations.
19. UnitedHealth Group’s Optum affiliates with roughly 90,000 physicians nationwide.
20. Optum held about 2.7% of the national primary care market by service volume in 2023.
21. UnitedHealthcare pays Optum-owned physician practices 17% more than rival insurers pay Optum practices, relative to payments to non-Optum practices, a Health Affairs study found.
22. In markets where UnitedHealthcare has 25% or more market share, that payment difference rises to 61%.
23. Payer-operated practices accounted for 4.2% of Medicare primary care services in 2023, up from 0.78% in 2016.
24. Optum alone controlled 2.71% of Medicare primary care service volume nationally.
25. Payer-operated practices delivered 5.73% of Medicare Advantage primary care services.
26. The same practices delivered 1.84% of traditional Medicare primary care services.
27. Counties with above-average Medicare Advantage penetration saw payer ownership rates of 5.5%.
28. Counties with below-average MA penetration had payer ownership rates of just 1.5%.
29. Between 2013 and 2022, the number of hospital-employed physicians grew by 33%, from about 157,000 to more than 205,000, according to a report in the Journal of the Society of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons.
30. Over the same period, private practice physician counts grew just 17%.
31. Total employed physicians increased 22% from 2013 to 2022, reaching more than 760,000.
32. In 2020, 73% of U.S. medical practices were small, employing fewer than 50 people.
33. The number of small practices declined by 16% over the past 20 years.
34. Only 3% of physicians worked in academic institutions from 2013 to 2022.
35. Government-employed physicians accounted for 12% of physicians in 2022.
36. The share of government-employed physicians fell 2 percentage points over the prior decade.
37. From 2007 to 2020, 31 states experienced a net decline in physician offices.
38. New York accounted for 26% of nationwide physician office losses during that period.
39. Private equity acquisitions of physician groups increased more than 600% from 2012 to 2021, according to analysis from Health Affairs.
40. After a practice acquisition, physicians saw an average income decline of $2,987, though independent physicians earned 0.8% more on average than those in hospital-owned practices.
41. Healthcare deal volume overall held steady throughout 2025, generally in the mid-260s to low 300s per quarter, even as pricing moved around more, according to a Dec. 16 report from PwC.
42. Deal value dropped sharply from $19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $7 billion in the third quarter of 2025, then climbed to $22 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 to date.
43. After a practice acquisition, physicians saw an average income decline of $2,987, according to an article in Health Affairs.
44. The study also found a $2,987 drop in income for physicians overall after their practice is acquired.
45. Medscape also reports independent physicians earn more than employed physicians and specialists, including orthopedic surgeons. The independent orthopedists made $29,000 more than employed orthopedists in 2021.
46. Nearly 80% of physicians who said the need for better leverage in payer negotiations played a very important or important reason in the sale of their private practice to a hospital or health system, according to a report from the AMA.
47. More than 108,700 physicians left private practice for employment opportunities from 2019 to 2021, according to a report from Avalere.
48. By the end of 2021, 74% of physicians were employed by hospitals, health systems or corporate entities such as private equity firms or health insurers.
49. Hospitals and other corporate entities acquired 36,200 additional physician practices over the three-year period, a 36% increase.
50. By January 2022, hospitals and corporate entities owned 53.6% of physician practices in the U.S.
