Radiologist consolidation into bigger and/or multispecialty practices might foster subspecialization and enhance negotiation energy, in keeping with a research printed June 5 within the American Journal of Roentgenology.
A group led by Eric Christensen, PhD, of the Harvey L. Neiman Well being Coverage Institute in Reston, VA, reported that “an total lower within the variety of radiology practices and concurrent development within the variety of radiologists [between 2014 and 2023] was mirrored by shifts from small towards giant practices and from radiology-only towards multispecialty practices, in line with ongoing apply consolidation.”
The researchers used knowledge from the U.S. Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies (CMS) from between 2014 and 2023 to establish all U.S. radiologists and their affiliated practices. The group categorized these physicians based mostly on the apply’s specialty combine (radiology-only or multispecialty); multispecialty practices have been additional grouped into the next cohorts: radiology-majority, other-specialty-majority, or no-majority-specialty. Christensen and colleagues additionally tracked temporal shifts to establish any consolidation patterns.
The group discovered the next:
| Modifications in apply traits, 2014 to 2023 | |
|---|---|
| Measure | Proportion modifications between 2014 and 2023 |
| Variety of radiologists in apply | +17.3 |
| Radiology-affiliated practices | -14.7% |
| Radiology-only practices | -31.8% |
| Radiologist-affiliated multispecialty practices | +12.3% |
| Variety of radiologists in a apply | |
| 1 to 2 | -18.7% |
| 3 to 9 | -34.4% |
| 10 to 24 | +25.2% |
| 25 to 49 | +33.2% |
| 50 to 99 | +121.6% |
| 100 or extra | +348.5% |
Imply numbers of radiologists per apply (values in bars), and imply numbers of all physicians per apply (numbers above bars), for practices with a minimum of one affiliated radiologist in 2014 and 2023, stratified by apply kind. Graphic and caption courtesy of the AJR.
“Whereas figuring out causes of consolidation have been past this research’s scope, the shifts might relate to financial incentives and legislative modifications favoring giant multispecialty practices,” the researchers concluded.
The full research might be discovered right here.
