AMA loses 12,000 MD's, membership slide continues

CHICAGO — The latest membership totals show the American Medical Association has continued to bleed doctors, with about 12,000 physicians leaving the group last year.

That 5 percent drop puts membership at almost 216,000, or less than one-fourth of U.S. physicians. That's not unprecedented.

The AMA is still the nation's largest doctors group and remains a powerful lobby.

But the membership slide continues a trend in departures, for a variety of reasons. Some doctors quit over the AMA's support for the Obama administration's health care overhaul and that remains a contentious issue for the group.

Others have left to join medical specialty societies, and because the AMA's reputation has shifted to being more of a trade group than a public health advocate.

In the late 1990s, the AMA had nearly 300,000 members.