Patient prices go up as hospitals take over physician practices, reduce competition

Medical Economics July 21, 2025
Richard Payerchin, Todd Shryock

Key Takeaways

Hospital ownership of physician practices increased from 27.5% in 2008 to 47.2% in 2016, with notable growth in cardiology and general surgery.
Mergers of hospitals and OB-GYN practices led to significant price increases for labor and delivery services, highlighting the impact on patient costs.
Price hikes for integrated physicians suggest reduced competition, as integration status remained unchanged, indicating non-quality-related price increases.
Many hospital-physician integrations evade regulatory review due to their size, despite significant consumer harm, challenging antitrust enforcement.
Policy changes, such as site-neutral billing, could reduce financial incentives for hospital acquisitions of physician practices, addressing the issue of rising prices.

Study becomes the latest to confirm earlier research and suspicions about potential bad effects of consolidation...

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