Patient-Sharing Networks of Physicians and Health Care Utilization and Spending Among Medicare Beneficiaries

JAMA Network November 27, 2017
Bruce E. Landon, MD, MBA; Nancy L. Keating, MD, MPH,; Jukka-Pekka Onnela, DSc; et al

Question Are physician networks associated with health care spending, utilization, and quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries?

Findings In this social network analysis of Medicare data, total spending was higher for patients of physicians with more connections to other physicians and more shared care outside of their network. Patients whose physicians’ networks had more primary care physicians had more primary care visits and fewer specialist and emergency visits.

Meaning Characteristics of physicians’ networks and the position of physicians and hence their patients within the network are associated with overall spending and utilization of services for Medicare beneficiaries.

Importance Physicians are embedded in informal networks in which they share patients, information, and behaviors.

Objective...

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