The privilege, granted by a hospital, or other inpatient health program, to a physician, or other independent practitioner, to join the hospital’s medical staff and hospitalize private patients in the hospital. A practitioner is usually granted privileges after meeting certain standards, being accepted by the medical staff and board of trustees of the hospital, and committing himself to carry out certain duties for the hospital such as teaching without pay, or providing emergency or clinic services. Most community and other private hospital in this country are staffed by physicians who are private practitioners and obtain access to hospital facilities in this manner. It is common for a physician to have staff privileges at more than one hospital. On the other hand, since hospitals accept a limited number of physicians, some practitioners are excluded and end up with no access to hospital facilities, having no staff privileges. The standards used to determine staff privileges sometimes include evaluation by the county medical society, which may give preference to or require membership in that society, which in turn may require membership in the American Medical Association. This practice is formally opposed by the AMA. Some hospitals limit privileges for certain services to board eligible or certified physicians. Full time, or hospital-based physicians, and physicians working in a system such as a prepaid group practice with its own hospital are not usually thought of as having staff privileges. Sometimes called admitting hospital, practice, or clinical privilege. Many hospitals have several different types or grades of staff privileges with names like active, associate, courtesy or limited. However, these names have irregular and un-systemized meaning, although the real differences between the different types of privileges deserve a decent nomenclature.