Physician Compensation Supply of Medical Services

Physician Organization and Quality of Care

Previous studies have found that paitents of staff/group model HMOs consistently report lower quality of care than patients of Network HMOs.  The finding of Rodriguez et al. (2009) contradicts these assumptions.  They find the following:

  • Physicians belonging to integrated medical groups had better performance on the communication and care coordination measures.
  • Physicians belonging to medical groups with greater numbers of PCPs had better performance on all measures. Larger practices may benefit from economies of scales and more investment in electronic patient records.
  • Productivity incentives do not improve care.  Patients of physicians with strong incentives to see more patients per day may be more likely to experience longer office wait times compared with patients of physicians that do not have these incentives.

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