California's Beleaguered Physician Groups — Will They Survive?

Abstract

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.—Mark TwainOn September 2, 1999, the California Medical Association released a highly publicized report entitled, “The Coming Medical Group Failure Epidemic.”¹ The report begins, “Mounting evidence collected by the California Medical Association now points to the imminent collapse of a key element in the state's health care delivery sys-tem . . . with as many as 90 percent of . . . physician organizations in the state poised for bankruptcy or closure.”In 1998, the financial collapse of two large physician-practice–management companies, MedPartners and FPA Medical Management, left thousands of California . . .