Some companies are privately owned, others publicly traded. Each emergency physician contracts with the corporation, which in turn has a contract with the hospital. Obviously, with the multitude of hospitals in the country and the various contract management companies, each situation must be analyzed independently. Independent groups are corporations, partnerships or associations that have a contract with a hospital to provide emergency physician coverage. These situations are increasingly harder to find.
Group structure varies from equal partnerships to limited partnerships to solo contract holders.
These small groups may be able to provide better physician reimbursement than a contract management corporation because of less overhead. Once again, situations vary widely throughout the country, and the specifics of each must be critically analyzed. Hospital employee situations are becoming more popular again. In this situation the emergency physician is contracted directly to the hospital with guaranteed compensation, benefits, and vacation. Hybrid groups refer to those situations in which a group has some features of the independent group practice and has more than a few hospitals.