Solo practitioners remain important contributors to primary care

Peterson et al1 raise important issues about the decline in the proportion of solo practitioners in primary care and whether it will have a detrimental effect on access to care in rural areas. They use practice organization data provided by family physicians who took the American Board of Family Medicine’s recertification examination in 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2013 to track the proportion of family physicians in solo practice. The reported percentage was 13.9% in 1993, stayed approximately 16% from 1998 to 2008, and then decreased significantly to 11.0% in 2013 (P < .01).