Open AccessWill Commercial Managed Care Patients Accept Residents as Their Primary Care Providers?
Author(s) -
Gross Cary,
Callahan Mark,
Mele Joseph
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of general internal medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.746
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 1525-1497
pISSN - 0884-8734
DOI - 10.1046/j.1525-1497.1998.00100.x
Subject(s) - medicine , medicaid , managed care , family medicine , primary care , telephone survey , primary care physician , medline , ambulatory care , health care , business , marketing , political science , law , economics , economic growth
We conducted a telephone survey of patients in a university‐based medical practice to determine if there was a difference across payer class in patients’ willingness to have supervised housestaff physicians function as their primary care providers. Overall, commercial managed care patients were more likely to object to seeing housestaff physicians than were Medicaid or Medicare patients (50% vs 32% or 23%, respectively). However, prior outpatient care by a resident physician significantly increased patient willingness to be cared for by a resident. This effect of prior care by a resident was noted in the managed care as well as the Medicaid and Medicare populations. Although there may have been self‐selection, our data demonstrate that a significant proportion of managed care patients who have had residents as their primary care providers are amenable to continuing this practice.