Physicians’ career satisfaction, quality of care and patients’ trust: the role of community uninsurance

Factors Influencing Career Decisions and Satisfaction Among Newly Practicing Ophthalmologists

PURPOSE

To describe the career choices of newly practicing ophthalmologists and explore factors influencing career decisions and satisfaction.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from an electronic survey of ophthalmologists who completed training within the prior 5 years. The survey included questions about demographic information, medical education, current practice, factors affecting career choices, and career satisfaction. Statistical comparisons were made based on gender, type of practice, subspecialty training, and practice area.

RESULTS

Surveys were completed by 696 (32%) newly practicing ophthalmologists, including 276 (40%) women, 179 (29%) academicians, and 465 (67%) subspecialists. A higher proportion of female respondents entered academics than male respondents (36% vs 26%, P = .009). Female and male respondents pursued fellowship training with similar frequency (64% vs 68%, P = .32), but men were more likely to seek vitreoretinal fellowships (30% vs 11%, P < .001) and women were more likely to undertake fellowships in pediatric ophthalmology (21% vs 8%, P < .001), uveitis (10% vs 2%, P = .002), and neuro-ophthalmology (6% vs 2%, P = .042). A total of 514 (83%) respondents reported being happy with work life.

CONCLUSIONS

The career choices of newly practicing ophthalmologists differ based on gender, type of practice, subspecialty training, and practice area. Many factors affect career decisions, and they have varying influence on subgroups within ophthalmology. Ophthalmologists have high levels of career satisfaction. This information may prove useful when developing workforce strategies to meet future eye care needs. NOTE: Publication of this article is sponsored by the American Ophthalmological Society.

Hospital Readmission From the Perspective of Medicaid and Uninsured Patients

BACKGROUND

Patients with little or no health insurance are frequently readmitted to the hospital, yet few previous studies have listened to patients' explanations of why they returned to the hospital after discharge. Enhanced understanding of patient perspectives may facilitate targeted services and improve care.

METHODS

We enrolled 18 patients with Medicaid or no insurance during a hospital readmission within 30 days in a major metropolitan area, and conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews to explore the impact of patients' experiences around readmission using a grounded theory approach.

RESULTS

We identified five themes contributing to readmission: (1) therapeutic misalignment; (2) accountability; (3) social fragility; (4) access failures; and (5) disease behavior. Medical conditions were complicated by social influences and insufficiently addressed by our health system. Patients understood the need to manage their own health but were unable to effectively execute care plans because of competing life demands and compromised relationships with health providers.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study using interviews of readmitted Medicaid and uninsured patients revealed complex illnesses complicated by social instability and health system failures. Improved patient-provider trust and shared decision-making, while addressing social determinants and expanding care coordination with community partners, provide opportunity to better meet patients' needs and decrease hospital readmission in high-risk patients.

Medicaid's lasting impressions: Population health and insurance at birth

This article examines lasting mortality improvements associated with availability of Medicaid at time and place of birth. Using the US Vital Statistics (1959-2010), I exploit the variation in when each of the 50 states adopted Medicaid to estimate overall infant mortality improvements that coincided with Medicaid participation. 0.23 less infant deaths per 1000 live births was associated with states' Medicaid implementation. Second, I find lasting associations between Medicaid and mortality improvements across the life-course. I build state-specific cohort life-tables and regress age-specific mortality on availability of Medicaid in their states at time of birth. Cohorts born after Medicaid adoption had lower mortality rates throughout childhood and into adulthood. Being born after Medicaid was associated with between 2.03 and 3.64 less deaths per 100,000 person-years in childhood and between 1.35 and 3.86 less deaths per 100,000 person-years in the thirties. The association between Medicaid at birth and mortality was the strongest in the oldest age group (36-40) in this study.

Beyond Health Effects?: Examining the Social Consequences of Community Levels of Uninsurance Pre-ACA

The lack of health insurance is traditionally considered a problem faced by individuals and their families. However, because of the geographically bounded organization and funding of healthcare in the United States, levels of uninsurance in a community may affect everyone living there. Health economists have examined how the effects of uninsurance spillover from the uninsured to the insured, negatively affecting healthcare access and quality for the insured. We extend research on uninsurance into the domain of sociologists by theorizing how uninsurance might exacerbate social inequalities and undermine social cohesion within communities. Using data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, we show that individuals living in communities with higher levels of uninsurance report lower social cohesion net of other individual and neighborhood factors and discuss implications for implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Do People with Health Insurance Coverage Who Live in Areas with High Uninsurance Rates Pay More for Emergency Department Visits?

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationship between the percent uninsured in a county and expenditures associated with the typical emergency department visit.

DATA SOURCES

The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey linked to county-level data from the American Community Survey, the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, and the Area Health Resources Files.

STUDY DESIGN

We use a nationally representative sample of emergency department visits that took place between 2009 and 2013 to estimate the association between the percent uninsured in counties and the amount paid for a typical visit. Final estimates come from a diagnosis-level fixed-effects model, with additional controls for a wide variety of visit, individual, and county characteristics.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Among those with private insurance, we find that an increase of 1 percentage point in the county uninsurance rate is associated with a $20 increase in the mean emergency department payment. No such association is observed among visits covered by other insurance types.

CONCLUSIONS

Results provide tentative evidence that the costs associated with high uninsurance rates spill over to those with insurance, but future research needs to replicate these findings with longitudinal data and methods before drawing causal conclusions. Recent data on changes in area uninsurance rates following the ACA's insurance expansions and subsequent changes in emergency department expenditures afford a valuable opportunity to do this.

Access to and Use of Health Care Services Among Latinos in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights

This study examined differences in access, utilization, and barriers to health care by nativity, language spoken at home, and insurance status in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, California. Data from household interviews of neighborhood residents conducted as part of a corner store intervention project were used. Binary and multinomial logistic regression models were fitted. Results showed that uninsured and foreign-born individuals were differentially affected by lack of access to and utilization of health care. While the Affordable Care Act may ameliorate some disparities, the impact will be limited because of the exclusion of key groups, like the undocumented, from benefits.

Antecedents of care by physicians

The objective of this study was to examine factors impacting physicians' quality of care. This study used the Center for Studying Health System Change's 2008 Health Tracking Physician Survey data set consisting of 4720 physicians belonging to the American Medical Association. Regression analysis indicated that time with patient, career satisfaction, use of information technology for patient information, and income had a significant, positive impact on perception of high-quality care by physicians. Threat of malpractice lawsuits, percent revenue from Medicaid, and type of practice had a significant negative impact on perception of high-quality care by physicians. Among all the variables examined in our study, time with patient had the greatest impact on perception of high-quality care by physicians.

Spillover effects of an uninsured population

A lack of health insurance has long been associated with negative effects on individual and family health due to access barriers. However, we know little about how a lack of health insurance affects wider communities beyond health care. Based on in-depth interviews in two Los Angeles communities, we report how a lack of health insurance affects the functioning of religious institutions and schools from kindergarten to 12th grade. We find a negative spillover effect at the individual and institutional levels for schools experiencing greater absenteeism due to health insurance problems of pupils. However, we find that religious organizations are little affected by a lack of health insurance of adherents. Instead, churches offer health programs as a means to engage their communities. Besides documenting a negative and a positive spillover effect, we offer a conceptual framework for the qualitative study of health spillover effects and examine the policy implications of our findings.

Health insurance coverage, income distribution and healthcare quality in local healthcare markets

We develop a theoretical model of a local healthcare system in which consumers, health insurance companies, and healthcare providers interact with each other in markets for health insurance and healthcare services. When income and health status are heterogeneous, and healthcare quality is associated with fixed costs, the market equilibrium level of healthcare quality will be underprovided. Thus, healthcare reform provisions and proposals to cover the uninsured can be interpreted as an attempt to correct this market failure. We illustrate with a numerical example that if consumers at the local level clearly understand the linkages between health insurance coverage and the quality of local healthcare services, health insurance coverage proposals are more likely to enjoy public support.

Does uninsurance affect the health outcomes of the insured? Evidence from heart attack patients in California

In this paper, I examine the impact of uninsured patients on the in-hospital mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I employ panel data models using patient discharge and hospital financial data from California (1999-2006). My results indicate that uninsured patients have an economically significant effect that increases the mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I show that these results are not driven by alternative explanations, including reverse causality, patient composition effects, sample selection or unobserved trends and that they are robust to a host of specification checks. The primary channel for the observed spillover effects is increased hospital uncompensated care costs. Although data limitations constrain my capacity to check how hospitals change their provision of care to insured heart attack patients in response to reduced revenues, the evidence I have suggests a modest increase in the quantity of cardiac services without a corresponding increase in hospital staff.

Career satisfaction in primary care: a comparison of international and US medical graduates

BACKGROUND

International medical graduates (IMGs) have substantial representation among primary care physicians in the USA and consistently report lower career satisfaction compared with US medical graduates (USMGs). Low career satisfaction has adverse consequences on physician recruitment and retention.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to identify factors that may account for or explain lower rates of career satisfaction in IMGs compared with USMGs.

DESIGN

Using data from the 2008 Health Tracking Physician Survey, a nationally representative survey, we examined the association between IMG status and career satisfaction among primary care physicians. We used multivariable logistic regression modeling to adjust for a broad range of potential explanatory factors and physician characteristics.

PARTICIPANTS

The study participants comprise primary care physicians who reported at least 20 h a week of direct patient care activities (N = 1,890).

MAIN MEASURES

The main measures include respondents' overall satisfaction with their careers in medicine.

KEY RESULTS

IMGs were statistically significantly less likely than USMGs to report career satisfaction (75.7% vs. 82.3%; p = 0.005). This difference persisted after adjusting for physician characteristics and variables describing the practice environment (adjusted odds ratio = 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.43-0.90). Pediatricians (vs. internists) and those who earned $200,001-250,000 (vs. <$100,000) or >$250,000 were more likely to report career satisfaction, while solo practitioners and those who reported being unable to provide high-quality patient care were less likely to report career satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS

After adjusting for a number of variables previously shown to have an impact on career satisfaction, we were unable to identify additional factors that could account for or explain differences in career satisfaction between IMGs and USMGs. In light of the central role of IMGs in primary care, the potential impact of poorer satisfaction among IMGs may be substantial. Improved understanding of the causes of this differential satisfaction is important to appropriately support the primary care physician workforce.

Physician career satisfaction: examining perspectives of the working environment

The author examined the relationship among factors influencing the career satisfaction of 2,105 physicians. Data from the 2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey were used to obtain 5 latent factors. Structural equation modeling was then applied to extract information on factor interrelationships with physician satisfaction. The main results indicate that underinsurance is negatively associated with physician career satisfaction. Thus, spillover effects that are related to decreased physician satisfaction may increase with greater proportions of underinsurance.

Which physicians have access to electronic prescribing and which ones end up using it?

OBJECTIVES

This study examines the availability of electronic prescription and the utilization of e-prescribing by physicians in the US.

METHODS

Nationally representative data from the 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey were used to identify which subgroups of physicians have access to e-prescribing technology and which subgroups are using this technology more or less intensively. Exhaustive Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) was employed for statistical data segmentation.

RESULTS

Results indicate that the rapidly increasing adoption of electronic prescription is diminished by relatively low physician utilization. E-prescription utilization was segmented among practice size and type. There were also differences in e-prescription use by age, gender, and ethnicity/race in some subgroups. Actual use of e-prescription was very low for female physicians in surgical specialties, psychiatry, and obstetrics/gynecology, and for Hispanic physicians in pediatrics, internal medicine, and family/general practice in solo/two physician practices, medical schools, and hospitals.

CONCLUSIONS

Insights from segmentation analyses could be used to identify adoption barriers and to develop targeted interventions to accelerate the implementation of e-prescription systems in physician practices.