Feb 19, 2016 4 min read

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The family doctor used to be a common feature in every town, large or small. The age of the house-call and the black medicine bag may have ended, but you can usually find a good family doctor in your town, right?

Unfortunately, rising malpractice insurance costs, aging physicians and fewer new medical school graduates wanting to enter family practice may be turning the classic family doctor into a dying breed.

When you think of a doctor’s office, you probably conjure up the image of a single doctor and their staff in a cozy office. Today, though, you are more likely to find a number of doctors working out of the same location, even though they practice in the same fields. You may also see different doctors and nurses each time you go to visit.

As of 2014, only 17% of family doctors operated a solo practice. That’s down from 2008, when the number was already low at 25%.

New doctors are not seeking out solo practices, so family doctors who are looking into retirement are having trouble finding new blood to take over even well established practices.

Medical malpractice insurance is a fact of life for anyone who practices medicine. The average family physician can pay up to $18,000 or more in premiums, where five years ago, they were paying less than $8,000. Specialists, however, have always paid much more. While premiums are dropping slowly, they still prove to be a challenge for physicians with family practices.

With the high prices of insurance as well as all the other necessities, small solo practices often find themselves unable to meet their minimum operating costs — not even including the salary of the physician themselves.

Student loans are easily the bane of anyone looking to obtain higher education, but for a physician, they can be phenomenal. Most students graduating from medical school are looking at a minimum of $100,000 that has to be repaid with interest.

Many students, therefore, are choosing to become specialists rather than going into family or general practice, simply because they can make more money and get those loans repaid faster. In the last year, less than 10% of graduates chose to move into family practices.

This trend first started to make the news back in 2007, but each passing year makes it more prevalent.

Many of the physicians who are currently still running their family practices are swiftly approaching retirement age, and many may wish to hang up their stethoscopes and enjoy their golden years. Some doctors choose to practice past the normal retirement age, but others may be forced into that position by necessity. In the next five years, 1 in 4 doctors will reach the generally accepted retirement age of 65.

Right now, the family doctor is a dying breed, but the next generation of physicians currently working their way through medical school could change that. It’s also possible that our medical system is in the midst of a shift that will change the way that we take care of our health forever.

We can only wait and see whether the next five to 10 years will shift the medical practice for or against the family doctor.