Top 25 physician groups by Medicare payments

Physician groups are critical to patient care as hospitals continue to compete with growing demand for outpatient facilities like retail clinics and surgery centers. Complementing but dissimilar to traditional inpatient hospitals, physician groups occupy a unique place in the care continuum.

How are physician groups and hospitals different?

Physician group practices offer outpatient rather than inpatient services, giving them greater flexibility in operational concerns such as operating hours, service offerings and geographical coverage.

However, their small size can also be a detriment. Smaller practices are not able to offer the same number of services a hospital can, leading to smaller revenue pools and greater risk of understaffing. Lack of revenue can also make it harder to implement new technologies, including electronic health record (EHR) systems.

For these and other reasons, hospitals and health systems are increasingly willing to purchase or partner with local physician groups. These relationships ensure that patient referrals remain in-network, which can stem revenue loss.

The Definitive Healthcare PhysicianGroupView product tracks over 126,000 groups. Below is a list of the top 25 physician groups based on the highest Medicare payments. This data is sourced from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Public Use File (PUF) and aggregates provider data at the physician group level.