Medical Practice: From Cottage Industry to Corporate Practice

The American medical profession faces much alteration in what they do as practicing physicians that has been felt as an impingement upon their professional autonomy. As more and more physicians transition from private practice controlled by them and their colleagues to employment within large healthcare organizations controlled by an administrative class, their discontent over their loss of status has been evident. This discontent within the profession is reviewed while examining trends in the supply of physicians, income, specialty practices, and the significant change in moving from independent practice to wage-contract conditions as employees. This set of issues will be seen in light of the overall corporatization of medicine with its new structures being put in place by the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare and growing private corporate interests. Such alterations in medical practice and its resulting disruption will likely be the prelude to the next medical malpractice insurance crisis.