Benchmarking physicians' practices: trends toward the millennium.

The health care industry has enjoyed--and suffered--no shortage of changes in the last year. Many are the effects of the ongoing trends internal and external to the industry and others are the seemingly spontaneous events the industry is beginning to take as "business as usual." The challenges facing health care come as much from the internal dynamics of an industry in rapid consolidation and transition as from the societal, economic, cultural, and political contexts in which it operates.