Management services organization

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A management services organization (MSO) is an organization owned by a hospital, physician group, or other group of investors, that provides management and administrative support services to individual physicians or small group practices.^[1] One purpose of MSOs is to relieve physicians of non-medical business functions so that they can concentrate on the clinical aspects of their practice.

Because MSOs integrate business functions that were previously separate, they can generally achieve economies of scale. These cost savings may be passed on to physicians, health plans, and healthcare purchasers.

In some cases, MSOs simply provide business services to providers for a fee. In other cases, MSOs purchase the tangible assets, such as buildings, equipment, and supplies, of their client physicians and lease these assets back to the physicians. In these situations, the physicians continue to own their own medical records and health plan contracts and continue to practice in their own offices. This arrangement relieves physicians of yet another non-medical aspect of running a practice.

[edit] See also

• Independent practice association
• Integrated delivery system
• Physician-hospital organization
• Physician practice management company

[edit] References