As of early 2026, hospitals or corporate entities employ 82% of physicians — a 5.6 percentage point increase in just two years, according to Avelere and the Physicians Advocacy Institute.
The consolidation has been decades in the making, but the pace is accelerating. Since 2024 alone, hospitals have acquired roughly 5,800 physician practices and corporate entities — primarily private equity firms and insurers — have acquired more than 8,000.
Here is a breakdown of which groups are buying up physician practices, including at what scale, price, and what the results and costs are for physicians in acquired practices.
1. Private practice participation has collapsed. In 2024, only 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. Private practice now represents less than half of physicians in most medical specialties, with participation ranging from 30.7% in cardiology to 46.9% in radiology.
2. Corporate entities now own more practices than hospitals. Corporate entities including insurers and PE-backed companies employed 23% of physicians in 2024, up from 15% in 2019, according to a September 2025 Government Accountability Office report. Corporate entity ownership of practices (33.2%) now exceeds hospital ownership (30.6%) — a threshold crossed for the first time as of early 2026.