Primary Care Physicians and Spending on Low-Value Care

Sources of Low-Value Care Received by Medicare Beneficiaries and Associated Spending Within US Health Systems

This cross-sectional study examines referrals for low-value health care services and associated spending by ordering clinician among Medicare beneficiaries.

Who's Accountable? Low-Value Care Received By Medicare Beneficiaries Outside Of Their Attributed Health Systems

Policy makers and payers increasingly hold health systems accountable for spending and quality for their attributed beneficiaries. Low-value care-medical services that offer little or no benefit and have the potential for harm in specific clinical scenarios-received outside of these systems could threaten success on both fronts. Using national Medicare data for fee-for-service beneficiaries ages sixty-five and older and attributed to 595 US health systems, we describe where and from whom they received forty low-value services during 2017-18 and identify factors associated with out-of-system receipt. Forty-three percent of low-value services received by attributed beneficiaries originated from out-of-system clinicians: 38 percent from specialists, 4 percent from primary care physicians, and 1 percent from advanced practice clinicians. Recipients of low-value care were more likely to obtain that care out of system if age 75 or older (versus ages 65-74), male (versus female), non-Hispanic White (versus other races or ethnicities), rural dwelling (versus metropolitan dwelling), more medically complex, or experiencing lower continuity of care. However, out-of-system service receipt was not associated with recipients' health systems' accountable care organization status. Health systems might improve quality and reduce spending for their attributed beneficiaries by addressing out-of-system receipt of low-value care-for example, by improving continuity.

Performance on Patient Experience Measures of Former Chief Medical Residents as Physician Exemplars Chosen by the Profession

Importance

Physicians' knowledge about each other's quality is central to clinical decision-making, but such information is not well understood and is rarely harnessed to identify exemplars for disseminating best practices or quality improvement. One exception is chief medical resident selection, which is typically based on interpersonal, teaching, and clinical skills.

Objective

To compare care for patients of primary care physicians (PCPs) who were former chiefs with care for patients of nonchief PCPs.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Using 2010 to 2018 Medicare Fee-For-Service Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey data (response rate, 47.6%), Medicare claims for random 20% samples of fee-for-service beneficiaries, and medical board data from 4 large US states, we compared care for patients of former chief PCPs with care for patients of nonchief PCPs in the same practice using linear regression. Data were analyzed from August 2020 to January 2023.

Exposures

Receiving the plurality of primary care office visits from a former chief PCP.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Composite of 12 patient experience items as primary outcome and 4 spending and utilization measures as secondary outcomes.

Results

The CAHPS samples included 4493 patients with former chief PCPs and 41 278 patients with nonchief PCPs. The 2 groups were similar in age (mean [SD], 73.1 [10.3] years vs 73.2 [10.3] years), sex (56.8% vs 56.8% female), race and ethnicity (1.2% vs 1.0% American Indian or Alaska Native, 1.3% vs 1.9% Asian or Pacific Islander, 4.8% vs. 5.6% Hispanic, 7.3% vs 6.6% non-Hispanic Black, and 81.5% vs. 80.0% non-Hispanic White), and other characteristics. The Medicare claims for random 20% samples included 289 728 patients with former chief PCPs and 2 954 120 patients with nonchief PCPs. Patients of former chief PCPs rated their care experiences significantly better than patients of nonchief PCPs (adjusted difference in composite, 1.6 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.4-2.8; effect size of 0.30 standard deviations (SD) of the physician-level distribution of performance; P = .01), including markedly higher ratings of physician-specific communication and interpersonal skills typically emphasized in chief selection. Differences were large for patients of racial and ethnic minority groups (1.16 SD), dual-eligible patients (0.81 SD), and those with less education (0.44 SD) but did not vary significantly across groups. Differences in spending and utilization were minimal overall.

Conclusions and Relevance

In this study, patients of PCPs who were former chief medical residents reported better care experiences than patients of other PCPs in the same practice, especially for physician-specific items. The study results suggest that the profession possesses information about physician quality, motivating the development and study of strategies for harnessing such information to select and repurpose exemplars for quality improvement.

Organizational influences on the use of low-value care in primary health care - a qualitative interview study with physicians in Sweden

AIM

The aim was (1) to explore organizational factors influencing the use of low-value care (LVC) as perceived by primary care physicians and (2) to explore which organizational strategies they believe are useful for reducing the use of LVC.

DESIGN

Qualitative study with semi-structured focus group discussions (FGDs) analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

SETTING

Six publicly owned primary health care centers in Stockholm.

SUBJECTS

The participants were 31 primary care physicians. The number of participants in each FGD varied between 3 and 7.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Categories and subcategories reporting organizational factors perceived to influence the use of LVC and organizational strategies considered useful for reducing the use of LVC.

RESULTS

Four types of organizational factors (resources, care processes, improvement activities, and governance) influenced the use of LVC. Resources involved time to care for patients, staff knowledge, and working tools. Care processes included work routines and the ways activities and resources were prioritized in the organization. Improvement activities involved performance measurement and improvement work to reduce LVC. Governance concerned organizational goals, higher-level decision making, and policies. Physicians suggested multiple strategies targeting these factors to reduce LVC, including increased patient-physician continuity, adjusted economic incentives, continuous professional development for physicians, and gatekeeping functions which prevent unnecessary appointments and guide patients to the appropriate point of care. .

CONCLUSION

The influence of multiple organizational factors throughout the health-care system indicates that a whole-system approach might be useful in reducing LVC.KEY POINTSWe know little about how organizational factors influence the use of low-value care (LVC) in primary health care.Physicians perceive organizational resources, care processes, improvement activities, and governance as influences on the use of LVC and LVC-reducing strategies.This study provides insights about how these factors influence LVC use.Strategies at multiple levels of the health-care system may be warranted to reduce LVC.

Health Care Expenditures Attributable to Primary Care Physician Overall and Burnout-Related Turnover: A Cross-sectional Analysis

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the excess health care expenditures due to US primary care physician (PCP) turnover, both overall and specific to burnout.

METHODS

We estimated the excess health care expenditures attributable to PCP turnover using published data for Medicare patients, calculated estimates for non-Medicare patients, and the American Medical Association Masterfile. We used published data from a cross-sectional survey of US physicians conducted between October 12, 2017, and March 15, 2018, of burnout and intention to leave one's current practice within 2 years by primary care specialty to estimate excess expenditures attributable to PCP turnover due to burnout. A conservative estimate from the literature was used for actual turnover based on intention to leave. Additional publicly available data were used to estimate the average PCP panel size and the composition of Medicare and non-Medicare patients within a PCP's panel.

RESULTS

Turnover of PCPs results in approximately $979 million in excess health care expenditures for public and private payers annually, with $260 million attributable to PCP burnout-related turnover.

CONCLUSION

Turnover of PCPs, including that due to burnout, is costly to public and private payers. Efforts to reduce physician burnout may be considered as one approach to decrease US health care expenditures.

Low-Value Care at the Actionable Level of Individual Health Systems

IMPORTANCE

Low-value health care remains prevalent in the US despite decades of work to measure and reduce such care. Efforts have been only modestly effective in part because the measurement of low-value care has largely been restricted to the national or regional level, limiting actionability.

OBJECTIVES

To measure and report low-value care use across and within individual health systems and identify system characteristics associated with higher use using Medicare administrative data.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This retrospective cohort study of health system-attributed Medicare beneficiaries was conducted among 556 health systems in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Compendium of US Health Systems and included system-attributed beneficiaries who were older than 65 years, continuously enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B for at least 12 months in 2016 or 2017, and eligible for specific low-value services. Statistical analysis was conducted from January 26 to July 15, 2021.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Use of 41 individual low-value services and a composite measure of the 28 most common services among system-attributed beneficiaries, standardized to distance from the mean value. Measures were based on the Milliman MedInsight Health Waste Calculator and published claims-based definitions.

RESULTS

Across 556 health systems serving a total of 11 637 763 beneficiaries, the mean (SD) use of each of the 41 low-value services ranged from 0% (0.01%) to 28% (4%) of eligible beneficiaries. The most common low-value services were preoperative laboratory testing (mean [SD] rate, 28% [4%] of eligible beneficiaries), prostate-specific antigen testing in men older than 70 years (mean [SD] rate, 27% [8%]), and use of antipsychotic medications in patients with dementia (mean [SD] rate, 24% [8%]). In multivariable analysis, the health system characteristics associated with higher use of low-value care were smaller proportion of primary care physicians (adjusted composite score, 0.15 [95% CI, 0.04-0.26] for systems with less than the median percentage of primary care physicians vs -0.16 [95% CI, -0.27 to -0.05] for those with more than the median percentage of primary care physicians; P < .001), no major teaching hospital (adjusted composite, 0.10 [95% CI, -0.01 to 0.20] without a teaching hospital vs -0.18 [95% CI, -0.34 to -0.02] with a teaching hospital; P = .01), larger proportion of non-White patients (adjusted composite, 0.15 [95% CI, -0.02 to 0.32] for systems with >20% of non-White beneficiaries vs -0.06 [95% CI, -0.16 to 0.03] for systems with ≤20% of non-White beneficiaries; P = .04), headquartered in the South or West (adjusted composite, 0.28 [95% CI, 0.14-0.43] for the South and 0.22 [95% CI, 0.02-0.42] for the West compared with -0.09 [95% CI, -0.26 to 0.08] for the Northeast and -0.44 [95% CI, -0.60 to -0.28] for the Midwest; P < .001), and serving areas with more health care spending (adjusted composite, 0.23 [95% CI, 0.11-0.35] for areas above the median level of spending vs -0.24 [95% CI, -0.36 to -0.12] for areas below the median level of spending; P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

The findings of this large cohort study suggest that system-level measurement and reporting of specific low-value services is feasible, enables cross-system comparisons, and reveals a broad range of low-value care use.