Trimming physician practices While there are no statistics on exactly how many hospitals are dumping physician practices, practice consultants say the trend is very real. At its peak in 1998, Tenet owned 1,000 doctor practices. By May 2001, it expects to own only about 250. Virtually every hospital chain has reported the same experience. Obviously, something was wrong with the model because everyone has failed with it.
Most analysts see several factors in that breakdown.
First, most hospitals proved incompetent at managing physician practices, and few learned from their mistakes and adjusted. Second, most acquired physician practices have proven to be less productive than when they were when independent. Something was wrong with the hospital-owned practice model because everyone has failed with it. Health care consultant James Unland, president of The Health Capital Group of Chicago, said that mismatched expectations created problems with hospital purchases of doctor practices. The older physicians saw this as a way to wind down, when the hospitals wanted them to keep working.