The delegation of ambulatory patient care tasks by pediatricians is directly related to the types and numbers of health workers per doctor employed in solo and two-man practice settings. Physician productivity rate is directly related to patient care task delegation in settings of all sizes. Larger size settings, especially multispecialty groups, compare unfavorably with those solo and small specialty group settings which employ two or more health workers per physician both in patient care task delegation frequencies and in physician productivity. Physician productivity in smaller practice settings may be a reflection of the community demand for care in areas where medical manpower is in short supply and where the physician, motivated to respond to their demand, employs more ancillary help as a method of discharging his responsibilities. Whether similar factors influence the productivity of physicians in multispecialty groups cannot be answered from the data at hand.