How have corporate-owned medical practices changed healthcare services?

CHE RESEARCH BITES

By Anthony Scott

16 April, 2024

Primary care practices have traditionally been small, privately-owned entities managed by general practitioners (GPs).  In the last 30 years, they have become increasingly owned by large corporations. How did these changes affect access to care, healthcare services quality and GP wellbeing?

We found that corporate medical groups are more efficient organisations than other practices. They have higher nurses-to-GP ratios, their GPs spend less time on administration, and they appear overall to provide a model that might be leveraging economies of scale.

Patient access is somewhat better in corporate practices, as evidenced by lower fees and a higher percentage of bulk-billed patients, though this comes with slightly longer waiting times for preferred GPs. The increased efficiency does not seem to compromise service quality, with no significant differences found in measures like teaching, patient complaints, consultation length, and the number of patients seen per hour.

Approximately 45% of GPs in Australia work in practices owned by private companies, of whom 20% are employed in corporate medical groups with ten or more practice locations. Compared with their non-corporate peers, they report similar levels of job satisfaction and similar workload in terms of hours worked. However, work-life balance is lower and turnover higher among GPs in corporate settings.

The corporatisation of primary care practices in Australia has brought benefits in organisational efficiency and patient access. However, its long-term impacts on the wellbeing of GPs and the continuity and quality of care still need monitoring.

Find the original academic paper here: Scott, A., Taylor, T., Russell, G., & Sutton, M. (2024). Associations between corporate ownership of primary care providers and doctor wellbeing, workload, access, organizational efficiency, and service quality. Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 142, 105028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2024.105028

Find out more about the Economic modelling of health policies and technologies research theme.

CHE Research Bites are short, easy-to-understand summaries of our recent academic papers highlighting new evidence and insights on topical issues in the health and healthcare sectors.

Interested in hearing the latest from the Centre for Health Economics? Sign up to our newsletter. Follow us on X and LinkedIn.