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Abstract
BackgroundPhysicians are considered to be the most informed consumers in the use of medical services since they have more information about diseases or medical technology. However, although plenty of researchers have suggested that different medical seeking behavior exists among physicians, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate differences in medical utilization between physicians and the general population.ObjectiveWe explored differences in the utilization of healthcare services between physicians and the general population using a population-based dataset.DesignA cross-sectional study.ParticipantsData for this study were sourced from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000. We included 1426 physicians and 1426 sex- and age-matched comparison subjects.MethodsWe used Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests to explore differences in variables of healthcare resource utilization between physicians and comparison subjects. We further used Kruskal-Wallis tests to examine differences in variables of healthcare resource utilization between physician practice location and comparison subjects.ResultsWe found that physicians had significantly fewer outpatient visits (13.2 vs. 15.7, p<0.001) and significantly lower outpatient costs (US$477 vs. US$680, p<0.001) than comparison subjects. Furthermore, physicians had lower total health service costs than comparison subjects (US$643 vs. US$1066, p<0.001). This indicates that the mean total health service costs in the year 2010 was 1.66-fold greater for comparison subjects than for physicians. We also found that there were significant differences in the mean number of outpatient services (p<0.001), outpatient costs (p = 0.001), inpatients costs (p = 0.018), and total costs (p = 0.001) among office-based physicians, hospital-based physicians, and comparison subjects. Specifically, Scheffe contrast tests showed that office-based physicians had significantly more outpatient visits (19.3 vs.10.7, p<0.001) and significantly higher outpatient costs (US$656 vs. US$402, p<0.001) than hospital-based physicians.ConclusionsPhysicians had less healthcare utilization than comparison subjects. Furthermore, hospital-based physicians had higher inpatient costs and less outpatient services and costs than office-based physicians.
Highlights
Physicians are considered to be the most informed consumers in the use of medical services since they have more information about diseases or medical technology
Plenty of researchers have suggested that different medical seeking behavior exists among physicians, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate differences in medical utilization between physicians and the general population
We found that physicians had significantly fewer outpatient visits (13.2 vs. 15.7, p
Summary
Physicians are considered to be the most informed consumers in the use of medical services since they have more information about diseases or medical technology. Very few studies have attempted to explore issues of medical utilization behavior of physicians. Two studies even reported that office-based physicians were more likely to practice self-treatment than hospital-based physicians [7,8]. Plenty of researchers have suggested different medical seeking behaviors among physicians, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate differences in medical utilization between physicians and the general population. Only one study by Lin et al reported that physicians were at lower risk of hospitalization than the general population in Taiwan [9]. Plenty of researchers have suggested that different medical seeking behavior exists among physicians, very few empirical studies have been conducted to investigate differences in medical utilization between physicians and the general population.
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