Primary care panel size plays an increasing role in measuring primary care providers (ie, physicians and advanced practice providers, which include nurse practitioners and physician assistants) workload, setting practice capacity, and determining pay and can influence the quality of care, access, and burnout. However, reported panel sizes vary widely.

This systematic review aims to identify how panels are defined, the degree of variation in these definitions, the consequences of different definitions of panel size, and research on the strengths of different approaches.