Medical Practice Valuation Multiples 2026: Our Annual Report

This report pulls together free, public data on medical practice valuations and deal activity. Every figure is attributed to its publisher and date, and we list the sources at the end. We update it each year as new data comes out.

Multiples by practice size

Size is the biggest single driver of the multiple. Cascade Partners, an investment bank, published these 2026 ranges for physician practice deals:

Provident Healthcare Partners, another investment bank, said in April 2026 that platforms with $5 million or more of EBITDA traded "2–4x turns above smaller add-on assets."

Multiples by specialty

These are the most recent free ranges we found for each specialty. Most come from a single data vendor, Scope Research, so treat them as one view of the market rather than a consensus.

We could not find a free, dated 2025–2026 range we trust for radiology professional groups, anesthesia, gastroenterology or ophthalmology, so they are not in the table. For more detail on single specialties, see our guides to dermatology, physical therapy, optometry and plastic surgery valuation.

For context at the very top of the market, NYU professor Aswath Damodaran's January 2026 data put publicly traded US healthcare support services companies at about 11.2x EBITDA and hospitals at about 8.9x. Those are listed companies, not private practices, and they work as a ceiling rather than a benchmark.

Deal volume: 2026 slowed down

Levin Associates counted 521 physician medical group deals in 2025. In 2026, quarterly counts have fallen:

Quarterly counts are as reported in Levin's releases. Levin keeps adding late-reported deals to earlier quarters, so its year-to-date total of 368 is higher than the sum of the quarters shown. Dental made up about half of third-quarter deals, and private equity firms and their platforms were behind more than half.

PitchBook, which counts private equity deals only, found the same trend. It reported 71 physician practice management deals in the second quarter of 2026, down from 89 in the first quarter and 102 in the fourth quarter of 2025, and said the projected annual count would be the lowest it has recorded since 2017. In 2025, PitchBook reported practice management deals down 18%, with gastroenterology down 85.7%, while musculoskeletal deals rose 33.3%.

Bain & Company's 2026 healthcare private equity report found that physician groups fell from 28% of global provider deals in 2021 to 23% in 2025.

Fewer independent practices are left

The AMA reported that 42.2% of physicians worked in private practice in 2024, down from 60.1% in 2012. Using a different definition, the Physicians Advocacy Institute and Avalere Health found 82.0% of physicians were employed by hospitals or corporate entities as of January 1, 2026, and that almost 13,900 practices were acquired from 2024 to 2026. For owners, the point is the same: independent practices are becoming scarcer, and well-run ones still draw buyers.

What will move prices in 2027

Medicare rates

CMS raised the 2026 Medicare physician conversion factor to $33.40 for most physicians, up 3.26%, helped by a one-year 2.5% increase set by Congress. That increase expires. CMS's 2027 proposed rule would cut the conversion factor to $32.84, down 1.68%. The final 2027 rule was not out when we published this report. Medicare-heavy practices should expect buyers to model the cut.

Interest rates

The Federal Reserve raised its target range by a quarter point to 3.75%–4.00% on September 16, 2026. Higher rates raise buyers' borrowing costs, and PitchBook named "higher interest rates" as one reason healthcare private equity deals declined in 2026.

Pay up, productivity down

MGMA's 2026 data showed physician pay rising 2.23% in primary care, 2.90% for surgical specialists and 1.79% for nonsurgical specialists, while work RVUs fell in 16 of 23 specialties. Rising pay with falling output squeezes the earnings buyers pay a multiple on.

What gets a practice a higher multiple

• Scale. More providers and locations, and earnings that do not depend on one physician.
• Payer mix. Provident said practices with diversified commercial payers "achieved materially better outcomes" than those heavy in government payers.
• Ancillary services. Cascade Partners said ancillary revenue such as surgery centers, imaging, therapy and infusion "supports 25–40% multiple premiums."
• Clean financials. Normalized owner pay, separated personal expenses and reliable reporting make earnings easier to underwrite.

Common questions

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