Determinants of specialty physician practice management integration

Physicians increasingly organize strategically to mitigate the potentially adverse impacts of managed care on practice incomes. There are alternative routes to physician organizing. This article used a 1996-1997 survey of orthopedics and obstetrics-gynecology (OB-GYN) practices in Memphis, Tennessee, to investigate the determinants of specialty physician integration through physician practice management (PPM) firms. The percentage of managed care contracts indicates a weak but positive correlation with PPM integration. Different factors appear to influence the likelihood of integration in different specialties.