Physician employment: Four of five U.S. docs now work for nonphysician-owned group

New data on physician employment trends show that as of Jan. 1 of this year, four out of five physicians work for groups that are no longer owned by doctors. According to the Physicians Advocacy Institute, the new data show that the number of physicians working for nonphysician-owned groups has nearly doubled since 2018.

Here’s a deeper dive into the numbers and what they mean for American medicine.

Physician employment trends

A report from Avalere Health for the Physicians Advocacy Institute found that at the beginning of 2026, 550,494 physicians—82%—worked for a hospital or corporate entity. The organization’s data found that number grew by more than 253,000 physicians, an increase of 85%, since 2018.

Data found that in 2026, 59.7% of physicians were employed by hospitals and 22.3% were employed by corporate entities. The number of physicians working for physician-owned groups came in at just over 120,000.

That means that as of 2026, just 18% of practicing physicians work for physician-owned groups. In 2018, when the group started tracking employment trends, 52% of physicians worked for hospitals or corporate entities.

The biggest growth in the number of physicians working for nonphysician-owned groups came from hospitals, which added 181,200 physicians to their payroll between 2018 and 2026. Other corporate entities picked up an additional 71,8000 physicians during that same period.

During just the last two years—2024-2026—hospitals and corporate entities added 48,000 physicians to their payroll, the data found. That represented a 5% increase in the number of physicians working for nonphysician-owned groups in those two years alone.

Group ownership trends

Hospitals and corporate entities have been on a buying spree when it comes to physician-owned groups. Between 2018 and 2026, hospitals acquired 32,800 physician practices, while corporate entities acquired 52,300 medical groups.

Nonphysician groups now own 64% of all medical practices in the United States, compared to 30% in 2018. That’s an increase of 114%.

Data found that the pace of corporate acquisition of medical groups appears to have slowed in the last two years. Between 2024 and 2026, corporations acquired 8,000 groups, or 15% of the groups purchased during the eight-year period studied. During that same time frame, hospitals acquired 5,800 physician groups, or nearly 18% of their eight-year total.

Kelly Kenney, the group’s CEO, said in a statement that the rise in corporate ownership of medical groups is a potential problem because corporate entities have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, not patients. “Corporate profits must never take precedence over patients,” she said.

Interestingly, the data found differences in employment trends among hospitals and corporate entities. From 2024-2025, for example, hospitals acquired 5,800 practices, which led to them adding 44,000 physicians to their payroll. That was an 8.2% increase in physician employment.

During that same period, corporations added 8,000 medical groups but added only 4,200 physicians to their payroll. Corporations boosted their physician numbers by less than 1% from 2024-2025.

Analysts say those conflicting trends are likely the result of corporations cutting payroll after they acquire practices.

Regional trends

Data found that areas of the country saw physicians move to working for corporately owned groups. Here are some key data points:

• In the Midwest, 86.9% now work for nonphysician-owned groups. In that region, 70% of physicians work for hospitals, the largest number in the country.
• The West saw the fastest rise of corporate medicine in the last two years: 6.6%.
• In terms of corporate ownership of physician groups, the South leads with 37%. That number jumped 185% from 2018-2026.
• The West saw a similar rise in corporate ownership over that eight-year period.

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