Health system integration with physician specialties varies across markets and system types.

OBJECTIVE: To examine system integration with physician specialties across markets and the association between local system characteristics and their patterns of physician integration. DATA SOURCES: Data come from the AHRQ Compendium of US Health Systems and IQVIA OneKey database. STUDY DESIGN: We examined the change from 2016 to 2018 in the percentage of physicians in systems, focusing on primary care and the 10 most numerous nonhospital-based specialties across the 382 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the US. We also categorized systems by ownership, mission, and payment program participation and examined how those characteristics were related to their patterns of physician integration in 2018. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: We examined local healthcare markets (MSAs) and the hospitals and physicians that are part of integrated systems that operate in these markets. We characterized markets by hospital and insurer concentration and systems by type of ownership and by whether they have an academic medical center (AMC), a 340B hospital, or accountable care organization. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Between 2016 and 2018, system participation increased for primary care and the 10 other physician specialties we examined. In 2018, physicians in specialties associated with lucrative hospital services were the most commonly integrated with systems including hematology-oncology (57%), cardiology (55%), and general surgery (44%); however, rates varied substantially across markets. For most specialties, high market concentration by insurers and hospital-systems was associated with lower rates of physician integration. In addition, systems with AMCs and publicly owned systems more commonly affiliated with specialties unrelated to the physicians' potential contribution to hospital revenue, and investor-owned systems demonstrated more limited physician integration. CONCLUSIONS: Variation in physician integration across markets and system characteristics reflects physician and systems' motivations. These integration strategies are associated with the financial interests of systems and other strategic goals (eg, medical education, and serving low-income populations).

Can vertically integrated health systems provide greater value: The case of hospitals under the comprehensive care for joint replacement model?

OBJECTIVE: We aim to assess whether system providers perform better than nonsystem providers under an alternative payment model that incentivizes high-quality, cost-efficient care. We posit that the payment environment and the incentives it provides can affect the relative performance of vertically integrated health systems. To examine this potential influence, we compare system and nonsystem hospitals participating in Medicare's Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model. DATA SOURCES: We used hospital cost and quality data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services linked to data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Compendium of US Health Systems and hospital characteristics from secondary sources. The data include 706 hospitals in 67 metropolitan areas. STUDY DESIGN: We estimated regressions that compared system and nonsystem hospitals' 2017 cost and quality performance providing lower joint replacements among hospitals required to participate in CJR. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Among CJR hospitals, system hospitals that provided comprehensive services in their local market had 5.8 percent ($1612) lower episode costs (P = .01) than nonsystem hospitals. System hospitals that did not provide such services had 3.5 percent ($967) lower episode costs (P = .14). Quality differences between system hospitals and nonsystem hospitals were mostly small and statistically insignificant. CONCLUSIONS: When operating under alternative payment model incentives, vertical integration may enable hospitals to lower costs with similar quality scores.

Characteristics of Academic-Affiliated Health Systems.

PURPOSE: Changing market forces increasingly are leading academic medical centers (AMCs) to form or join health systems. But it is unclear how this shift is affecting the tripartite academic mission of education, research, and high-quality patient care. To explore this topic, the authors identified and characterized the types of health systems that owned or managed AMCs in the United States in 2016. METHOD: The authors identified AMCs as any general acute care hospitals that had a resident-to-bed ratio of at least 0.25 and that were affiliated with at least one MD- or DO-granting medical school. Using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2016 Compendium of U.S. Health Systems, the authors also identified academic-affiliated health systems (AHSs) as those health systems that owned or managed at least one AMC. They compared AMCs and other general acute care hospitals, AHSs and non-AHSs, and AHSs by type of medical school relationship, using health system size, hospital characteristics, undergraduate and graduate medical education characteristics, services provided, and ownership. RESULTS: Health systems owned or managed nearly all AMCs (361, 95.8%). Of the 626 health systems, 230 (36.7%) met the definition of an AHS. Compared with other health systems, AHSs included more hospitals, provided more services, and had a lower ratio of primary care doctors to specialists. Most AHSs (136, 59.1%) had a single, shared medical school relationship, whereas 38 (16.5%) had an exclusive medical school relationship and 56 (24.3%) had multiple medical school relationships. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that several distinct types of relationships between AHSs and medical schools exist. The traditional vision of a medical school having an exclusive relationship with a single AHS is no longer prominent.

Methodological Approaches to Understanding Causes of Health Disparities.

Understanding health disparity causes is an important first step toward developing policies or interventions to eliminate disparities, but their nature makes identifying and addressing their causes challenging. Potential causal factors are often correlated, making it difficult to distinguish their effects. These factors may exist at different organizational levels (e.g., individual, family, neighborhood), each of which needs to be appropriately conceptualized and measured. The processes that generate health disparities may include complex relationships with feedback loops and dynamic properties that traditional statistical models represent poorly. Because of this complexity, identifying disparities' causes and remedies requires integrating findings from multiple methodologies. We highlight analytic methods and designs, multilevel approaches, complex systems modeling techniques, and qualitative methods that should be more broadly employed and adapted to advance health disparities research and identify approaches to mitigate them.

Associations Between American Board of Internal Medicine Maintenance of Certification Status and Performance on a Set of Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) Process Measures.

Background: The value of the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program has been questioned as a marker of physician quality. Objective: To assess whether physician MOC status is associated with performance on selected Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) process measures. Design: Annual comparisons of HEDIS process measures among physicians who did or did not maintain certification 20 years after initial certification. Setting: Fee-for-service Medicare. Participants: 1260 general internists who were initially certified in 1991 and provided care for 85 931 Medicare patients between 2009 and 2012. Measurements: Annual percentage of a physician's Medicare patients meeting each of 5 HEDIS annual or biennial standards and a composite indicating meeting all 3 HEDIS diabetes standards. Results: Among the 1260 physicians, 786 maintained their certification from 1991 to 2012 and 474 did not. The mean annual percentage of HEDIS-eligible diabetic patients who completed semiannual hemoglobin A1c testing was 58.4% among physicians who maintained certification and 54.4% among those who did not (regression-adjusted difference, 4.2 percentage points [95% CI, 2.0 to 6.5 percentage points]; P < 0.001). Diabetic patients of physicians who maintained certification more frequently met the annual standard for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol measurement (83.1% vs. 80.5%; regression-adjusted difference, 2.3 percentage points [CI, 0.6 to 4.1 percentage points]; P = 0.008) and all 3 diabetic standards (46.0% vs. 41.6%; regression-adjusted difference, 3.1 percentage points [CI, 0.5 to 5.7 percentage points]; P = 0.019). The regression-adjusted difference in biennial eye examinations was statistically insignificant (P = 0.112). Measures for LDL cholesterol testing in patients with coronary heart disease and biennial mammography were also met more frequently among physicians who maintained certification (79.4% vs. 77.4% and 72.0% vs. 67.8%, respectively), with regression-adjusted differences of 1.7 percentage points (CI, 0.2 to 3.3 percentage points; P = 0.032) and 4.6 percentage points (CI, 2.9 to 6.3 percentage points; P < 0.001), respectively. Limitation: Potential confounding by unobserved patient, physician, and practice characteristics; inability to determine clinical significance of observed differences. Conclusion: Maintaining certification was positively associated with physician performance scores on a set of HEDIS process measures. Primary Funding Source: American Board of Internal Medicine.

Malpractice Claim Fears and the Costs of Treating Medicare Patients: A New Approach to Estimating the Costs of Defensive Medicine.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the cost of defensive medicine among elderly Medicare patients. DATA SOURCES: We use a 2008 national physician survey linked to respondents' elderly Medicare patients' claims data. STUDY DESIGN: Using a sample of survey respondent/beneficiary dyads stratified by physician specialty, we estimated cross-sectional regressions of annual costs on patient covariates and a medical malpractice fear index formed from five validated physician survey questions. Defensive medicine costs were calculated as the difference between observed patient costs and those under hypothetical alternative levels of malpractice concern, and then aggregated to estimate average defensive medicine costs per beneficiary. DATA COLLECTION METHODS: The physician survey was conducted by mail. Patient claims were linked to survey respondents and reweighted to approximate the elderly Medicare beneficiary population. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Higher levels of the malpractice fear index were associated with higher patient spending. Based on the measured associations, we estimated that defensive medicine accounted for 8 to 20 percent of total costs under alternative scenarios. The highest estimate is associated with a counterfactual of no malpractice concerns, which is unlikely to be socially optimal as some extrinsic incentives to avoid medical errors are desirable. Among specialty groups, primary care physicians contributed the most to defensive medicine spending. Higher costs resulted mostly from more hospital admissions and greater postacute care. CONCLUSIONS: Although results are based on measured associations between malpractice fears and spending, and may not reflect the true causal effects, they suggest defensive medicine likely contributes substantial additional costs to Medicare.

Examining Drivers of Health Care Spending: Evidence on Self-referral Among a Privately Insured Population.

BACKGROUND: Despite the enactment of laws to restrict the practice of self-referral, exceptions in these prohibitions have enabled these arrangements to persist and proliferate. Most research documenting the effects of self-referral arrangements analyzed claims records from Medicare beneficiaries. Empirical evidence documenting the effects of self-referral on use of services and spending incurred by persons with private insurance is sparse. OBJECTIVES: We analyzed health insurance claims records from a large private insurer in Texas to evaluate the effects of physician self-referral arrangements involving physical therapy on the treatment of patients with frozen shoulder syndrome, elbow tendinopathy or tendinitis, and patellofemoral pain syndrome. STUDY DESIGN: We used regression analysis to evaluate the effects of episode self-referral status on: (1) initiation of physical therapy; (2) physical therapy visits and services for those who had at least 1 visit; and (3) total condition-related insurer allowed amounts per episode. RESULTS: For all 3 conditions, we found that patients treated by physician owners were much more likely to be referred for a course of physical therapy when compared with patients seen by physician nonowners. A consistent pattern emerged among patients who had at least 1 physical therapy visit; non-self-referred episodes included more physical therapy visits, and more physical therapy services per episode in comparison with episodes classified as self-referral. Most self-referred episodes were short and the initial visit did not include an evaluation. CONCLUSION: Physician owners of physical therapy services refer significantly higher percentages of patients to physical therapy and many are equivocal cases.

Leveraging Diverse Data Sources to Identify and Describe U.S. Health Care Delivery Systems.

Health care delivery systems are a growing presence in the U.S., yet research is hindered by the lack of universally agreed-upon criteria to denote formal systems. A clearer understanding of how to leverage real-world data sources to empirically identify systems is a necessary first step to such policy-relevant research. We draw from our experience in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Comparative Health System Performance (CHSP) initiative to assess available data sources to identify and describe systems, including system members (for example, hospitals and physicians) and relationships among the members (for example, hospital ownership of physician groups). We highlight five national data sources that either explicitly track system membership or detail system relationships: (1) American Hospital Association annual survey of hospitals; (2) Healthcare Relational Services Databases; (3) SK&A Healthcare Databases; (4) Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System; and (5) Internal Revenue Service 990 forms. Each data source has strengths and limitations for identifying and describing systems due to their varied content, linkages across data sources, and data collection methods. In addition, although no single national data source provides a complete picture of U.S. systems and their members, the CHSP initiative will create an early model of how such data can be combined to compensate for their individual limitations. Identifying systems in a way that can be repeated over time and linked to a host of other data sources will support analysis of how different types of organizations deliver health care and, ultimately, comparison of their performance.

The role of internal medicine subspecialists in patient care management.

OBJECTIVES: To understand the clinical roles in which internal medicine (IM) subspecialists engage, especially those involving ongoing patient management. STUDY DESIGN: Measures of physician clinical roles were based on survey responses collected from 8020 mid-career IM subspecialists who registered for the American Board of Internal Medicine maintenance of certification program (86% registration/response rate) between 2009 and 2013. METHODS: Each subspecialist reported their percentage of clinical time in 5 clinical roles: primary, principal, longitudinal consultative, medical consultative, and procedural care. We characterized an IM subspecialist's clinical role focus as those roles that composed a majority of their clinical time. RESULTS: Most IM subspecialists reported spending a majority of their time performing 1 (65%) or 2 (31%) clinical roles. Most (54%) reported a clinical role focused on ongoing patient care management roles, including principal care (eg, total responsibility for a specific condition, 23%), longitudinal consultative care (eg, shared care, 21%); or a mixed clinical role focus composed of both principal and longitudinal consultative care (8%). We also found that physicians focused on ongoing patient care management roles represent a significant percentage of physicians within most IM subspecialties (ranging from 19% to 88% across subspecialties). CONCLUSIONS: A subspecialist's clinical role focus is an important practice characteristic, and many subspecialists perceive themselves as playing a significant role in care management. These findings suggest there are opportunities to incorporate subspecialists into newer payment and care delivery reforms; they also bring to light reasons that training and certification programs should consider the different clinical role foci subspecialists adopt.

After the "Doc Fix": Implications of Medicare Physician Payment Reform for Academic Medicine.

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) introduces incentives for clinicians serving Medicare patients to move away from traditional "fee-for-service" and into alternative payment models (APMs) such as accountable care organizations and bundled payment arrangements. Thus, MACRA creates strong reasons for various teaching clinical services to participate in APMs, not only for Medicare patients but for other public and private payers as well. Unfortunately, different APMs may be more or less applicable to the diverse teaching physician roles, academic clinical programs, and patient populations served by medical schools and teaching hospitals. Therefore, this time of transition will complicate the work of academic clinical program leaders endeavoring to sustain the tripartite mission of patient care, health professional education, and research. Nonetheless, payment reforms promoted by MACRA can reward efforts to reinvent medical education to better incorporate value into medical decision making, as well as to give clinical learners the tools and insights needed to recognize their personal financial (and other) conflicts and navigate these to meet their patients' needs. This post-MACRA environment may intensify the need for researchers in academic medicine to stay independent of the short-term financial interests of affiliated clinical institutions. Health sciences scholars must be able to study effectively and speak forcefully regarding the actual benefits, risks, and costs of health care services so that educators and clinicians can identify high-value care and deliver it to their patients.

Use of Physical Therapy Following Total Knee Replacement Surgery: Implications of Orthopedic Surgeons' Ownership of Physical Therapy Services.

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the course of physical therapy treatments received by patients who undergo total knee replacement (TKR) surgery differs depending on whether the orthopedic surgeon has a financial stake in physical therapy services. DATA: Sample of Medicare beneficiaries who underwent TKR surgery during the years 2007-2009. STUDY DESIGN: We used regression analysis to evaluate the effect of physician self-referral on the following outcomes: (1) time from discharge to first physical therapy visit; (2) episode length; (3) number of physical therapy visits per episode; (4) number of physical therapy service units per episode; and (5) number of physical therapy services per episode expressed in relative value units. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: TKR patients who underwent physical therapy treatment at a physician-owned clinic received on average twice as many physical therapy visits (8.3 more) than patients whose TKR surgery was performed by a orthopedic surgeon who did not self-refer physical therapy services (p < .001). Regression-adjusted results show that TKR patients treated at physician-owned clinics received almost nine fewer physical therapy service units during an episode compared with patients treated by nonself-referring providers (p < .001). In relative value units, this difference was 4 (p < .001). In contrast, episodes where the orthopedic surgeon owner does not profit from physical therapy services rendered to the patient look virtually identical to episodes where the TKR surgery was performed by a surgeon nonowner. CONCLUSIONS: Physical therapists not involved with physician-owned clinics saw patients for fewer visits, but the composition of physical therapy services rendered during each visit included more individualized therapeutic exercises.

Physician Self-Referral of Physical Therapy Services for Patients with Low Back Pain: Implications for Use, Types of Treatments Received and Expenditures.

Prior research on treatment of low back pain has documented large increases in use of spinal surgery, MRIs and lumbosacral injections linked to physician self-referral arrangements. No recent research has examined whether physician ownership of physical therapy services results in greater use of physical therapy to treat low back pain. The objective of this study is to investigate whether physician ownership of physical therapy services affects frequency of use, visits and types of physical therapy services received by patients with low back pain. Using claims records from insured patients covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (2008-2011) we compared several metrics of use of physical therapy services for low back pain episodes controlling for self-referral status. We identified 158,151 low back pain episodes, 27% met the criteria to be classified as "self-referral." Only 10% of "non-self-referral" episodes received physical therapy compared to 26% of self-referral episodes (p<0.001). The unadjusted and regression adjusted self-referral effect was identical - about 16 percentage point difference (p<0.001). Among patients who received some physical therapy, self-referral episodes were comprised of 2.26 fewer visits and 11 fewer physical therapy service units (p<0.001). Non-self-referring episodes included a significantly higher proportion of "active" (hands on or patient engaged) as opposed to "passive" treatments (p<0.001). The regression-adjusted difference was 30 percentage points when measured as actual counts and 29 percentage points when measured in RVUs (p<0.001). Total spending on back-related care was 35% higher for self-referred episodes compared to their non-self-referred counterparts (p<0.001). Ownership of physical therapy services influence physicians' referral to initiate a course of physical therapy to treat low back pain, but also affect the types of physical therapy services a patient receives.

Methods of Observing Variations in Physicians' Decisions: The Opportunities of Clinical Vignettes.

To support their efforts to promote high quality and efficient care, policymakers need to better understand the key factors associated with variations in physicians' decisions, and in particular, physician deviations from evidence-based care. Clinical vignette survey instruments hold potential for research in this area as an approach that both allows for practical, large-scale study and overcomes the data quality challenges posed by analysis of clinical data. These surveys present respondents with a narrative description of a hypothetical patient case and solicit responses to one or more questions regarding the care of the patient. In this review, we describe various methods for measuring variations in physicians' decisions and highlight a range of design features researchers should consider when developing a clinical vignette survey. We conclude by identifying areas for future research.

Measuring Changes in the Economics of Medical Practice.

For the latter third of the twentieth century, researchers have estimated production and cost functions for physician practices. Today, those attempting to measure the inputs and outputs of physician practice must account for many recent changes in models of care delivery. In this paper, we review practice inputs and outputs as typically described in research on the economics of medical practice, and consider the implications of the changing organization of medical practice and nature of physician work. This evolving environment has created conceptual challenges in what are the appropriate measures of output from physician work, as well as what inputs should be measured. Likewise, the increasing complexity of physician practice organizations has introduced challenges to finding the appropriate data sources for measuring these constructs. Both these conceptual and data challenges pose measurement issues that must be overcome to study the economics of modern medical practice. Despite these challenges, there are several promising initiatives involving data sharing at the organizational level that could provide a starting point for developing the needed new data sources and metrics for physician inputs and outputs. However, additional efforts will be required to establish data collection approaches and measurements applicable to smaller and single specialty practices. Overcoming these measurement and data challenges will be key to supporting policy-relevant research on the changing economics of medical practice.

Factors Contributing to Variations in Physicians' Use of Evidence at The Point of Care: A Conceptual Model.

There is ample evidence that many clinical decisions made by physicians are inconsistent with current and generally accepted evidence. This leads to the underuse of some efficacious diagnostic, preventive or therapeutic services, and the overuse of others of marginal or no value to the patient. Evolving new payment and delivery models place greater emphasis on the provision of evidence-based services at the point of care. However, changing physician clinical behaviors is likely to be difficult and slow. Policy makers therefore need to design interventions that are most effective in promoting greater evidence-based care. To help identify modifiable factors that can influence clinical decisions at the point of care, we present a conceptual model and literature review of physician decision making. We describe the multitude of factors--drawn from different disciplines--that have been shown to influence physician point-of-care decisions. We present a conceptual framework for organizing these factors, dividing them into patient, physician, practice site, physician organization, network, market, and public policy influences. In doing so, we review some of the literature that speak to these factors. We then identify areas where additional research is especially needed, and discuss the challenges and opportunities for health services and policy researchers to gain a better understanding of these factors, particularly those that are potentially modifiable by policymakers and organizational leaders.

The Results Are Only as Good as the Sample: Assessing Three National Physician Sampling Frames.

BACKGROUND: Databases of practicing physicians are important for studies that require sampling physicians or counting the physician population in a given area. However, little is known about how the three main sampling frames differ from each other. OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to compare the National Provider and Plan Enumeration System (NPPES), the American Medical Association Masterfile and the SK&A physician file. METHODS: We randomly sampled 3000 physicians from the NPPES (500 in six specialties). We conducted two- and three-way comparisons across three databases to determine the extent to which they matched on address and specialty. In addition, we randomly selected 1200 physicians (200 per specialty) for telephone verification. KEY RESULTS: One thousand, six hundred and fifty-five physicians (55 %) were found in all three data files. The SK&A data file had the highest rate of missing physicians when compared to the NPPES, and varied by specialty (50 % in radiology vs. 28 % in cardiology). NPPES and SK&A had the highest rates of matching mailing address information, while the AMA Masterfile had low rates compared with the NPPES. We were able to confirm 65 % of physicians' address information by phone. The NPPES and SK&A had similar rates of correct address information in phone verification (72-94 % and 79-92 %, respectively, across specialties), while the AMA Masterfile had significantly lower rates of correct address information across all specialties (32-54 % across specialties). CONCLUSIONS: None of the data files in this study were perfect; the fact that we were unable to reach one-third of our telephone verification sample is troubling. However, the study offers some encouragement for researchers conducting physician surveys. The NPPES and to a lesser extent, the SK&A file, appear to provide reasonably accurate, up-to-date address information for physicians billing public and provider insurers.

Interspecialty communication supported by health information technology associated with lower hospitalization rates for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions.

BACKGROUND: Practice tools such as health information technology (HIT) have the potential to support care processes, such as communication between health care providers, and influence care for "ambulatory care-sensitive conditions" (ACSCs). ACSCs are conditions for which good outpatient care can potentially prevent the need for hospitalization. To date, associations between such primary care practice capabilities and hospitalizations for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions have been primarily limited to smaller, local studies or unique delivery systems rather than nationally representative studies of primary care physicians in the United States. METHODS: We analyzed a nationally representative sample of 1,819 primary care physicians who responded to the Center for Studying Health System Change's Physician Survey. We linked 3 years of Medicare claims (2007 to 2009) with these primary care physician survey respondents. This linkage resulted in the identification of 123,760 beneficiaries with one or more of 4 ambulatory care-sensitive chronic conditions (diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and congestive heart failure) for whom these physicians served as the usual provider. Key independent variables of interest were physicians' practice capabilities, including communication with specialists, use of care managers, participation in quality and performance measurement, use of patient registries, and HIT use. The dependent variable was a summary measure of ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalizations for one or more of these 4 conditions. RESULTS: Higher provider-reported levels of communication between primary care and specialist physicians were associated with lower rates of potentially avoidable hospitalizations. While there was no significant main effect between HIT use and ACSC hospitalizations, the associations between interspecialty communication and ACSC hospitalizations were magnified in the presence of higher HIT use. For example, patients in practices with both the highest level of interspecialty communication and the highest level of HIT use had lower odds of ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalizations than did those in practices with lower interspecialty communication and high HIT use (adjusted odds ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence limits, 0.59, 0.82). CONCLUSIONS: Greater primary care and specialist communication is associated with reduced hospitalizations for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions. This effect was magnified in the presence of higher provider-reported HIT use, suggesting that coordination of care with support from HIT is important in the treatment of ambulatory care-sensitive conditions.