Annals of emergency medicine
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Practice consolidation is common and has been shown to affect the quality and cost of care across multiple health care delivery settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, and physician practices. Despite a long history of large practice management group formation in emergency medicine and intensifying media attention paid to this topic, little is known about the recent practice consolidation trends within the specialty. ⋯ Since 2012, we observed a steady trend toward increased consolidation of emergency department practice with nearly 1 in 4 emergency physicians nationally working in groups with more than 500 physicians in 2020 compared with 1 in 7 in 2012. Although the relationship between consolidation is likely to draw the most attention from policymakers or payers seeking to negotiate prices in the near term and advance payment models in the long term, greater attention is required to understand the effects of practice consolidation on emergency care.