Impact of physician assistant care on office visit resource use in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To investigate whether the use of physician assistants (PAs) as providers for a substantive portion of a patient's office-based visits affects office visit resource use.

Data source

Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component data from 1996 to 2004.

Study design

This retrospective cohort study compares the number of office-based visits per year between adults for whom PAs provided >or=30 percent of visits and adults cared for by physicians only.

Data collection/extraction methods

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality collects MEPS data using methods designed to produce data representative of the U.S. noninstitutionalized civilian population. Negative binomial regression was used to compare the number of visits per year between

SUBMITTER: Morgan PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2654167 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature