Potential Impact of the Affordable Care Act on Private Practice Physicians

Several provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act add up to physicians seeing more patients with better insurance policies; however, the long-range potential impact on private practice physicians becomes more ominous as more provisions rollout. With the development of Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare bundled payments, more private practices may be absorbed by hospitals. Medicaid expansion, which begins this year, may mean that hospitals will get most of the new Medicaid patients and will hire even more physicians away from private practices to treat them.