The Growth of Group Practice

Private Group Practices.

Private group medical practices, constituting a middle road between the individual practice common in the early 1900s and the prospect of nationalized medicine predicted by some, found growing acceptance during the 1910s. Arising mainly in the Mid-west, private group practices, also called private group clinics or group medicine, collected physicians into a single organization, often with business managers and technical assistants. These clinics were usually made up of not more than ten physicians who used common equipment, were jointly responsible for patients, and pooled their incomes. Advocates claimed that such clinics improved the quality of service without increasing fees and saved the patient's time. Some doctors contributed capital and became owners, while other physicians remained employees. The period from 1914 to 1920, and especially from 1918 to 1920, saw a high rate of growth in private group...

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