The Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) Doctrine prohibits the practice of medicine by lay-corporations. It, and laws restricting it were meant to protect patients from the commercialization of the profession of medicine, from interfering with the practice of medicine and in the judgement of physicians, and ultimately to protect the physician-patient relationship. While 34 states prohibit or restrict the CPOM, they are broadly unenforced in all of them.
Today, nearly three quarters of U.S. physicians are employed by corporate entities - and those corporations are more consolidated, more powerful, and hungrier for short-term profits than ever in history.
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Although the CPoM doctrine orignated with the AMA over a century ago, and is considered by them to be "integral to providing an ethical basis" to the profession of medicine, today the AMA no longer prohibits the corporate practice of medicine.
Bobby Mukkamala, MD, private practice ENT physician and immediate past chair to the AMA Board of Trustees explains the AMA's current policies on corporate investors and CPoM at the 2023 Take Medicine
Take Medicine Back board members and discuss concerns about the American Medical Association's current policy on the Corporate Practice of Medicine with Bobby Mukkamala MD of the AMA.
Take Medicine Back, a Public Benefit LLC formed in June, 2021 now has a private membership option for physicians (Take Medicine Back - Alliance is coming soon for non-physician membership). Join primarily to support the ongoing advocacy of Take Medicine Back. Join secondly for growing organizing and advocacy resources, community and mentorship, exclusive video content from our events, and benefits to take back your own professional autonomy including legal resources.
The Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) Doctrine is concerned with the practice of medicine by unlicensed corporations.
Private Equity, not to be confused with private ownership, has been deemed "fundamentally incompatible with a stable, competitive healthcare system that serves patients and promotes the health and wellbeing of the population." by the American Antitrust Institute. Although the CPOM doctrine is violated in theory whenever any lay-entity employs a physician, private equity is gasoline being poured on an already raging fire, catalyzing the consolidation and vertical integration of corporate entities that seek to control the practice of medicine.
To understand why private equity is so uniquely harmful to the profession of medicine, one must study the Pathophysiology of Private Equity. Take Medicine Back Founder Mitchell Li, MD interviews Pullitzer Prize Winning NBC News journalist and author of "These Are The Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs.. And Wrecks America" at the 2023 Take Medicine Back Summit. The cancer of private equity and corporatization has quickly spread to the rest of the profession of medicine.
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