Comparison of Services in Hospital Outpatient Departments and Physicians' Offices. Addendum to the Final Rport

摘要

The Comparison of Services in Hospital Outpatient Departments and Physicians Offices was designed to identify medical care services provided by physicians in Hospital outpatient departments which (1) in most instances are similar to services provided in physicians' offices, (2) in some (but not most) instances are similar to services provided in physicians' offices, and (3) are seldom similar to services provided in physicians' offices. To accomplish these comparisons, a fairly comprehensive examination of the Medicare Part B physician bill data for four states was carried out. During this examination, it became evident that the data also could be used to examine patterns of care provided by physicians practicing primarily in hospital outpatient department settings. Data for two of the four states used in the basic study were selected for use in examining care patterns. South Carolina Blue Shield and Florida Blue Shield data were selected. It was decided to use the South Carolina data to explore the relationships within the data, then apply the knowledge gained in the analysis of the Florida data. The hospital outpatient department services in South Carolina and in Florida billed to Medicare patients by physicians identified as providing a relatively high frequency of such services or as having relatively high aggregate charges are basically emergency room services.