Variation in Specialty Outpatient Care Patterns in the Medicare Population.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Multiple payment reform efforts are under way to improve the value of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries, yet few directly address the interface between primary and specialty care.

Objective

To describe regional variation in outpatient visits for individual specialties and the association between specialty physician-specific payments and patient-reported satisfaction with care and health status.

Design

Retrospective cross-sectional study.

Patients

A 20 % random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in 2012.

Main measures

Regions were grouped into quartiles of specialist index, defined as the observed/expected regional likelihood of having an outpatient visit to a specialist, for ten common specialties, adjusting for age, sex,

SUBMITTER: Clough JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5071277 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature