Creep or Coopetition: What Physician Leaders Must Decide About the Future of Medical Practice

Abstract

Medicine is entering what will likely be a prolonged period of practice overlap among clinicians with differing training, authority, and professional identities. These overlaps — often labeled “scope creep” — are commonly framed as zero-sum competitions between physicians and other healthcare professionals. This framing, however, obscures a more complex reality. In practice, modern healthcare increasingly operates under conditions of “coopetition,” where professionals and organizations simultaneously collaborate and compete. The central challenge is no longer whether scope overlap will occur, but whether it will be governed intentionally or allowed to erode medicine’s moral and clinical foundations. The conditions under which coopetition succeeds or fails are determined in large part by the type of physician leadership framework that exists for managing scope overlap responsibly.