These Are the Largest Physician Groups in Medicine Today

The largest physician group in the U.S. has nearly 12,000 doctors, according to a new report from Definitive Healthcare.

The top 10 physician groups have more than 60,000 doctors total, according to data from the healthcare analytics firm’s PhysicianGroupView product. The top 10 groups, by number of doctors, are as follows:

1. Southern California Permanente Medical Group; CA: 11,998

2. The Permanente Medical Group; CA: 10,139

3. HCA Florida Healthcare Physicians; FL: 7,342

4. Mayo Clinic Physicians; MN: 5,375

5. HealthCare Partners IPA; NY: 5,042

6. Northwell Health Physician Partners; NY: 4,697

7. Ascension Medical Group; IN: 4,450

8. U.S. Anesthesia Partners; FL: 3,828

9. Geisinger Health Physicians; PA: 3,695

10. Hill Physicians Medical Group; CA: 3,587

Physician groups come in many varieties, from large hospital or health system-affiliated groups, to contract management groups (CMGs), all the way down to small practices owned by physicians. Definitive Healthcare says it tracks more than 125,000 such groups.

In addition to hospitals/health systems, CMGs, and individual physicians, these groups can also be owned by private equity groups and insurers, as previously reported in a MedPage Today investigation.

Over the past several decades, physicians have increasingly become employees rather than owners of independent practices. Last year, an American Medical Association survey found that the share of physicians in private practice dipped below 50% for the first time since the biennial survey was created a decade prior.

Joseph Sellers, MD, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, previously told MedPage Today that the trend “has been going on for probably 40 years.”

“There has been a change from physicians working in solo practice into group practices, into larger groups, and into groups affiliated [with] or groups owned by a health system, similar to the consolidation of our hospitals from individual hospitals into systems,” Sellers said at the time.

Physicians and healthcare economic experts previously told MedPage Today that consolidation, financial pressures, changing generational perspectives, and the pandemic will continue to drive and accelerate the trend toward employment for physicians.

“The economics, the cost, the complexity of healthcare does seem to be pushing into consolidation more and more,” Sellers said earlier. “But as we do that consolidation … we need to make sure we keep our eye on why we go into healthcare, and that is to take care of patients.”