Physicians with the least experience have higher cost profiles than do physicians with the most experience.

ABSTRACT: Health plans and Medicare are using cost profiles to identify which physicians account for more health care spending than others. By identifying the costliest physicians, health plans and Medicare hope to craft policy interventions to reduce total health care spending. To identify which physician types, if any, might be costlier than others, we analyzed cost profiles created from health plan claims for physicians in Massachusetts. We found that physicians with fewer than ten years of experience had 13.2 percent higher overall costs than physicians with forty or more years of experience. We found no association between costs and other physician characteristics, such as having had malpractice claims or disciplinary actions, board certification status, and the size of the group in which the p

SUBMITTER: Mehrotra A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3742384 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature