More and more doctors are selling their practices due to rising business expenses and shrinking payouts from insurers.  The buyers?  Hospitals.

According to a recent article from CNN, Doctors Bail out on their Practices, the number of physicians selling their practices to hospitals is up 30% to 40% in the last five years.  In the normal transaction, the selling doctor will then become an employee of the hospital along with the employees from the doctor’s practice.  As more and more of the Affordable Health Car Act (or Obamacare, depending on your preferred nomenclature) is put in place, hospitals seeking to increase their potential patient base in anticipation of millions more Americans obtaining, by law, access to health care, are buying practices. 

Why are more doctors selling their practices? 

  • Doctors are worried that new regulations (think, Affordable Health Care Act) will  only add to the administrative work and require more money to ensure compliance. 
  • Doctors are tired of the hassle of filing insurance claims and collecting payments from patients. 
  • Doctors want to actually practice medicine, as opposed to jumping through insurance and regulatory hoops just to receive ever-shrinking reimbursement. 
  • Doctors want a steady salary, less administrative work, and regular hours as a hospital employee.

Obviously, selling a practice is a big decision and one that should not be lightly made without consultation with an attorney.