Context: For health care reform to succeed, health care systems need a professionally satisfied primary care workforce. Evidence suggests that primary care physicians are less satisfied than those in other medical specialties.
Objective: To assess three domains of physician satisfaction by area of clinical practice among physicians practicing in an established integrated health system.
Design: Cross-sectional online survey of all Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) partner and associate physicians (N = 1034) who were primarily providing clinic-based care in 1 of 4 geographically and operationally distinct Kaiser Permanente Southern California Medical Centers.
Main outcome measures: Primary measure was satisfaction with one's day-to-day professional life as a physician. Secondary measures were satisfaction with quality of care and income.
Results: Of the 636 physicians responding to the survey (61.5% response rate), on average, 8 in 10 SCPMG physicians reported satisfaction with their day-to-day professional life as a physician. Primary care physicians were only minimally less likely to report being satisfied (difference of 8.2-9.5 percentage points; p < 0.05) than were other physicians. Nearly all physicians (98.2%) were satisfied with the quality of care they are able to provide. Roughly 8 in 10 physicians reported satisfaction with their income. No differences were found between primary care physicians and those in other clinical practice areas regarding satisfaction with quality of care or income.
Conclusion: It is possible to create practice settings, such as SCPMG, in which most physicians, including those in primary care, experience high levels of professional satisfaction.