By Dr. Tamara Patzer
Key Takeaways
- The National Science Foundation’s statistics center counted 469,939 U.S. health care services companies in 2021, and 344,673 of them had fewer than 10 employees.
- An American Medical Association survey of 1,692 physicians, fielded in early 2026, found that 72 percent use at least one AI tool and 73 percent expect AI to automate administrative duties.
- A JAMA study of 1,809 clinicians who adopted AI scribes at five academic health systems found about 16 fewer minutes of documentation time per eight scheduled patient hours.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 109,700 openings a year for medical assistants through 2035, and nearly all openings in secretarial work come from replacing people who change jobs or leave the workforce.
The Office Before the First Patient
Before the first appointment of the day, a medical office has already done a great deal of work. Someone has opened the schedule, counted the supplies and returned the overnight voicemails. Someone else is finishing yesterday’s notes.
That administrative layer is where artificial intelligence is arriving first. Tools that listen to a visit and draft the note, software that sorts the phone queue and programs that fill in routine forms are now part of the conversation at practices of every size. At the same time, the people who staff those offices work in a labor market that keeps producing openings. This article looks at the numbers behind both trends, drawn from federal statistics, a national physician survey and a peer-reviewed study.
How Many Practices Are Out There
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, part of the National Science Foundation, counted 469,939 U.S. health care services companies in 2021. Its Table 35, found in the Annual Business Survey data tables, groups companies by size. The category covers ambulatory care, hospitals, and nursing and residential care, so it is broader than doctors’ offices alone.
Small employers dominate. The table lists 344,673 companies with 1 to 9 employees, about 73 percent of the total. Another 105,017 had 10 to 49 employees, and 2,427 had 250 or more. The table counts companies, not office locations, and does not isolate physician practices.
Physician practices are changing shape. The American Medical Association’s Physician Practice Benchmark Survey, summarized in an article published June 24, 2025, found that 47.4 percent of physicians worked in practices of 10 or fewer physicians in 2024. That was down from 61.4 percent in 2012. The share of physicians in private practice fell from 60.1 percent to 42.2 percent over the same period. The survey drew on about 5,000 physicians.
Most health care employers are small, but a growing share of physicians work in larger groups, where administrative work spreads across more desks and systems.
AI Moves Into the Back Office
The American Medical Association’s Center for Digital Health and AI published a physician survey on augmented intelligence in March 2026. It was fielded January 15 to February 2, 2026, with 1,692 U.S. physicians responding. In the report’s breakdown, 72 percent said they use at least one AI use case, 19 percent said they use none, and 9 percent were unsure which tools their practice offers. Looking ahead, 73 percent said they expect AI to automate administrative duties, and 70 percent expect it to automate clinical tasks. Those are expectations, not current use.
The strongest evidence on one administrative tool, the AI scribe, comes from a study in JAMA published online April 1, 2026. Researchers followed ambulatory clinicians at five academic health systems: Mass General Brigham, Emory Healthcare, UCSF, Yale New Haven Health and UC Davis. Those systems introduced AI scribes between June 2023 and August 2025. The sample covered 8,581 clinicians, and 1,809 of them adopted a scribe.
Compared with clinicians who did not adopt, the adopters spent 16.0 fewer minutes on documentation and 13.4 fewer minutes in the electronic health record overall, each measured per eight scheduled patient hours. They also had about 0.49 more visits a week. Time in the record outside scheduled hours did not change by a statistically meaningful amount. The largest differences appeared among primary care clinicians and those who used the scribe for at least half of their visits.
Those results come from large academic systems. A five-person practice may see something different.
The People Who Hold the Knowledge
Administrative AI lands in an office that depends on a particular group of workers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its Occupational Outlook Handbook page last modified August 27, 2026, reported 833,900 medical assistant jobs in 2025. It projects 941,500 by 2035, growth of 13 percent that it calls much faster than average, with about 109,700 openings a year. The page notes that medical assistants schedule appointments, answer phones and order supplies.
The same agency’s handbook page on secretaries and administrative assistants, also last modified August 27, 2026, shows a different pattern for the field as a whole. Employment is projected to slip from about 3,515,600 in 2025 to 3,440,300 in 2035, a 2 percent decline, yet roughly 314,400 openings a year are expected. BLS says those openings come from replacing workers who move to other occupations or exit the labor force, retirement among them. Medical secretaries are the exception: 979,000 held those jobs in 2025, and the agency projects 5 percent growth, tied to the growth of the health care industry.
An opening is more than a vacant chair. When an experienced scheduler or billing coordinator leaves, the knowledge of how the office actually works can leave too: which insurer’s forms need a second look, how the supply order is timed, what to do when the phone system fails. Federal statistics do not measure that knowledge, so this is an inference from the turnover figures. A written procedure that a new hire can follow is one answer, and an automated tool can only work from what someone has set up for it.
Workload sits behind all of this. The American Medical Association reported on April 16, 2026 that 41.9 percent of physicians reported at least one symptom of burnout in 2025, down from 43.2 percent in 2024 and 48.2 percent in 2023. The figures come from nearly 19,000 responses across 106 health systems and organizations in 38 states. The AMA named ineffective electronic health record systems, inadequate staffing and excessive administrative tasks among the leading sources of job stress.
Where Practices Go From Here
The numbers suggest a few questions for a practice manager. Which tasks fill the most hours at the front desk and in the back office? Which are written down? Which staff members hold knowledge no one else has? The answers matter whether or not a new tool is adopted.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many U.S. health care companies are there? The National Science Foundation’s statistics center counted 469,939 health care services companies in 2021, including 344,673 with fewer than 10 employees.
How many physicians use AI? In the American Medical Association’s survey of 1,692 physicians, fielded January 15 to February 2, 2026, 72 percent reported using at least one AI use case.
What did the JAMA study find about AI scribes? At five academic health systems, clinicians who adopted AI scribes spent about 16 fewer minutes on documentation per eight scheduled patient hours than clinicians who did not. After-hours record time showed no meaningful change.
Are medical office jobs growing? The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 13 percent growth for medical assistants from 2025 to 2035 and 5 percent for medical secretaries, while secretarial and administrative assistant work overall is projected to decline 2 percent.
About the Author
Dr. Tamara “Tami” Patzer is a publisher and former newspaper editor who was on the staff of The Charlotte Sun when it was named a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Breaking News Reporting. She writes about AI and media literacy. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Contact: info@dailysuccessinstitute.com.
