Estimating the Primary Care Workforce for Medicare Beneficiaries Using an Activity-Based Approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The enumeration of the primary care workforce relies on potentially inaccurate specialty designations sourced from licensure registries and clinician surveys.

Objective

To use an activity-based measure of primary care to estimate the number of physicians, nurse practitioners (NPs), and physician assistants (PAs) providing primary care to Medicare beneficiaries.

Design

Observational study using Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) claims data.

Subjects

All clinicians in the US billing Medicare in 2019 and their fee-for-service Medicare patients.

Main measures

We construct three measures that together distinguish primary care from specialty clinicians: (1) presence of evaluation and management (E&M) services in a setting consistent with primary care,

SUBMITTER: O'Reilly-Jacob M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10593719 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature