Laurence C. Baker is a professor of health research and policy at Stanford University, in California, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
U.S. physicians are increasingly joining multispecialty group practices. In this paper, we analyze how a primary care physician’s practice type – single (SSP) versus multispecialty practice (MSP) – affects health care spending and use.
We examined the consequences of contractual or ownership relationships between hospitals and physician practices, often described as vertical integration.