How Much Does a Collaborating Physician Cost? 2026 Fair Price Data From 2,000+ Real Contracts

Every figure on this page reflects the same definition: total monthly fees including physician fees, platform fees, and physician malpractice insurance. That means the number bundles three things that are often quoted separately elsewhere: the physician's collaboration fee, the platform fee, and the physician's malpractice insurance.

What it does not include: your own NP malpractice policy, state licensing or filing fees, and any one-time onboarding or match fees a vendor may charge on top. Comparability depends entirely on this definition — a "$399" quote that excludes malpractice is not cheaper than a $549 quote that includes it.

Our dataset is built from real, signed collaboration agreements — not survey estimates, job postings, or vendor list prices. This is, to our knowledge, the first all-in cost study of collaborating physician fees funded by the NPs and PAs who pay them rather than the vendors who profit from them. For the national picture we analyzed 2,000+ actual contracts.

We publish the median as the headline figure, not the average, because a handful of high-cost outliers can distort a mean. Around the median we publish the 25th–75th percentile range — the Fair Price Band — so you can see where most contracts actually land.

A state earns its own page only when it has enough signed contracts to be statistically meaningful. We report sample sizes in bands (for example, "50+ contracts") rather than exact counts, both to protect contributor privacy and because the band is the honest precision the data supports. This is Edition 1, 2026; figures reflect contracts signed through May 2026.

The full underlying dataset is available as a machine-readable JSON endpoint and as a downloadable PDF report. For the full data sources, method, and citation formats, see our methodology & how to cite page.

State. Supply and demand for physicians willing to collaborate varies widely by state, and it is the single biggest driver of price. That is why the state tables above exist.

Specialty and scope. Higher-liability or more specialized practices command higher fees than low-acuity primary care.

Patient volume. Higher volume can mean more chart-review burden for the physician, which pushes the fee up.

Number of NPs under one physician. Physicians often price per NP; states also cap how many NPs a single physician may collaborate with.

Telehealth vs in-person. In-person requirements narrow the pool of available physicians and can raise the rate.

Chart-review burden. The volume and cadence of required chart reviews directly affects the physician's time and therefore the fee.

Malpractice bundling. Whether physician malpractice is included changes the true cost of a quote more than most NPs realize.