Doing More with Less : Predicting Primary Care Provider Effectiveness
Janet Currie, Jonathan Zhang
This paper uses data from 802,777 veterans assigned to 7,548 primary care providers (PCPs) within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to examine variations in the efficacy of primary care providers (PCPs), their consequences for health outcomes, and their determinants. Leveraging quasi-random assignment of veterans to PCPs, we measure PCP effectiveness along three dimensions: the probability their patients have subsequent hospitalizations or emergency department (ED) visits for mental health conditions, circulatory conditions, or a hospitalization for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSC). We find a significant range in these effectiveness measures across PCPs. For example, a one standard deviation improvement in our measure of mental health effectiveness predicts a 0.21 percentage point (3.8%) lower risk of patient death over the next three years and 4.4% lower total costs. We also find moderate correlations between the three metrics, indicating that doctors who are effective at treating one type of condition also tend to be more effective in treating others. Our strongest conclusion is that more effective PCPs do more with less: Their patients have fewer primary care visits, referrals to specialists, lab panels or imaging tests. Effective PCPs are slightly more likely to comply with guidelines for mental health screenings, and slightly less likely to comply with guidelines for physical health screenings, but these differences in screening propensities are negligible in magnitude
Year of publication: |
June 2021
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Authors: | Currie, Janet M. ; Zhang, Jonathan |
Institutions: | National Bureau of Economic Research (issuing body) |
Publisher: |
2021: Cambridge, Mass : National Bureau of Economic Research |
Subject: | Soldaten | Soldiers | Gesundheitsversorgung | Health care | Ärzte | Physicians | Ambulante Behandlung | Ambulatory care | Psychotherapie | Psychotherapy | Krankenhaus | Hospital | USA | United States |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource illustrations (black and white) |
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Series: | NBER working paper series ; no. w28929 |
Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Arbeitspapier ; Working Paper ; Graue Literatur ; Non-commercial literature |
Language: | English |
Notes: | System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files Mode of access: World Wide Web Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers |
Other identifiers: | 10.3386/w28929 [DOI] |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012585413