US physicians' perceptions of the effect of practice guidelines and ability to provide high-quality care

In the USA, health care organizations frequently disseminate practice guidelines to physicians, but physicians often resist implementing guidelines when they perceive no improvements in quality of care will result. Greater involvement with a single health care organization may a inverted exclamation market physicians' perceptions of guidelines. We examined the relationship between the perceived effect of guidelines on practice and perceived quality of care for US primary care physicians (PCPs) and specialists with varying levels of financial involvement with a single managed care organization.

Data were from the 1996-1997 Community Tracking Study, a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey of 12,528 physicians. Data were adjusted for possible confounders using ordinal logistic regression.

Almost half the physicians described a moderate to very large perceived effect of guidelines (46% of PCPs, 46% of specialists). Physicians' financial involvement with a single organization was modest: PCPs received on average 24% of their revenue from their largest contract, while specialists averaged 18%. For specialists, increasing perceived effect of guidelines was associated with increasingly negative perceptions of quality of care [beta= -0.16, 95% confidence interval (-0.22, -0.10)]. Similar results were obtained for PCPs with low levels of financial involvement with a single organization. However, this negative association disappeared for PCPs with higher levels of financial involvement.

PCPs with substantial financial involvement with a single organization who perceive greater effects of guidelines on practice have less negative perceptions of their ability to provide high-quality care. Although our data cannot confirm a causal relationship, financial involvement with a single organization may be one factor linking practice guidelines to high-quality care.