Patient–physician racial and ethnic concordance and perceived medical errors

Abstract

In this paper, I use nationally representative survey data to examine the relationship between patient–physician racial/ethnic concordance and perceived medical errors in the USA. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, we find that White patients treated by White physicians have 33% lower odds of reporting medical errors than White patients treated by non-White physicians. In contrast, patient–physician racial/ethnic concordance has no effect on perceived medical errors among non-White patients. The results suggest that the role of racial/ethnic concordance in perceptions of health care safety varies by patients’ racial/ethnic background.