Consolidation has become a norm for many independent physicians over the last decade.
Only 42.2% of physicians were working in private practice in 2024, a dramatic decline from 60.1% in 2012, according to the American Medical Association’s Physician Practice Benchmark Report published May 29.
However, some data show signs of growing interest in remaining independent. According to VMG Health’s 2025 “Healthcare M&A Report,” private equity was involved in 280 physician medical group transactions in 2024, accounting to 59% of total healthcare deals that year. This marks the lowest share of private equity activity since 2018, reflecting a decline from 80% of total deals in 2018.
Additionally, physicians working in physician-led practices also show higher signs of job satisfaction compared with their peers in health systems or corporate practices. Consulting firm Bain & Co. released its “Frontline of Health Survey” in October 2024, revealing that nearly 25% of physicians in health system-led organizations were considering changing employers, compared to 14% in physician-led practices. Among those in physician-led models, 81% said they were satisfied with their involvement in strategic decision-making, compared to just 50% in hospital-led practices.
This trend has ushered in a wave of new ASC companies and management services organizations looking to keep physicians independent while supporting their financial growth, administrative and clinical operations — among them is ReKlaim Health.
Officially launched in May, ReKlaim seeks to build a “national coalition” of independent ASCs and physician-owned hospitals through physician ownership, shared infrastructure and “union-style economics,” ReKlaim’s founder, Dutch Rojas, told Becker’s.
“The general idea is, how do you become the all-in-one platform for business services?” he said. ReKlaim supports physician-owned practices in a number of ways, but principally by bundling risk across employee benefits, property, casualty and malpractice insurance to cut down on physicians’ insurance and benefits costs.
ReKlaim also helps these groups consolidate administrative workloads including payroll, revenue-cycle management and compliance through systems that remain in physicians’ control. It also aims to strengthen practice finances through direct employer contracts and private labeled, self-funded employer plans and access to capital markets.
“We are working to organize, not sell [physicians], aligning them to form a real counterweight to the legacy system,” Mr. Rojas said. “Independent physicians aren’t selling. They’re syndicating.”
This platform was formulated through years of conversations between Mr. Rojas and independent physicians, identifying the primary areas where a lack of information and organization led to higher costs for these practices.
“It’s a tech platform that helps to be the foundation for anyone that’s in private practice,” he said. In less than a year, ReKlaim has partnered with more than 2,800 physician participants, including 50 ASCs and 20 physician-owned hospitals.
Education is also a core tenet of ReKlaim, as Mr. Rojas seeks to empower physicians with the financial resources and knowledge necessary to keep their practices growing, even if they wish to sell them down the line.
“One of the goals with this is always education,” he said. “In building these types of initiatives that we’re building, it’s [having] conversations with physicians and saying, if you want to sell something at the end of the day, you have to have enterprise value. And then getting to teach about enterprise value, about the discounted cash flow model. Because revenue will continue to come in, and then someone who buys it from you is really buying your stream of cash. These are remarkable little things that I think physicians just never got a chance to learn.”
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