The effect of faculty private practice experience on appropriate charging for professional services

Private practice experience is widely considered invaluable for academic family physicians, especially for clinical efficiency and for charging appropriately for professional services. This study tested the hypothesis that faculty members with private practice experience charged more appropriately for professional services. Patient-physician encounters were rated in terms of propriety of charges by consensus of two faculty physicians and compared to the actual level of service marked on the encounter form. Private practice experience for faculty resulted in less undercharging (21% of encounters undercharged versus 31% for faculty without that experience, P = .03). Physicians with private practice experience undercharged on average $.36 per encounter, versus $1.94 for providers without that experience (Kruskal-Wallis test, P = .27). Physicians with private practice experience also tended to perform more procedures but not to bill for more. Academic family physicians with private practice experience demonstrated more appropriate billing practices for professional services, but ideally preference for this type of academic physician should be based on other attributes, such as breadth of experience and efficiency in patient care.