Physician practices started the year off with a 6% revenue increase, but expenses also grew, according to a new report from Syntellis.
Syntellis surveyed 135,000 physicians on the financial performance of their practices and found revenue was up, but expenses increased even more with 8% growth. Physician practice productivity also grew year over year by 3.8% while support staff was up just 0.4%.
"While hospitals had a solid start to 2024, financial performance for the nation's physician practices was not as strong," the report states. "Ongoing expense increases continued to create financial pressure."
The higher expenses meant a higher level of investment to support physician operations, which Syntellis measured as median investment per FTE. The median investment jumped 9.2% year over year from 2022 to 2023.
The investment per physician FTE hit $308,275 in January, a 16.4% increase over 2022. Per-physician expenses were also high, around $1 million to start the year.