Boosting Physician Satisfaction: Lessons from Physician-Owned Practices

• Bain survey data shows that physician satisfaction at health systems consistently lags that of physician-owned practices.
• Health systems have many professional dimensions with low satisfaction and high potential for improvement, such as leadership alignment and physician autonomy.
• To raise satisfaction and build a culture of trust, health-system-led practices can apply four lessons from physician-led ones.

There’s a widening chasm in the healthcare workforce: Physicians at practices owned by or serving hospitals and healthcare systems are almost three times more likely to be dissatisfied than those at practices owned by physicians.

Since 2017, the...