Physician-related influences on use of health resources by primary care physicians

With the increasing supply of physicians, speculation has focused on possible actions physicians might take to increase use of services (e.g., office visits, laboratory use, prescriptions, or referrals), thus adding to spiraling health care costs. A survey of primary care physicians--pediatricians, internists, and family physicians--was conducted to assess physician-related factors associated with health resource use. The most consistent factors found to explain the variance among physicians in use of these health resources were the number of years in practice, whether they graduated from a foreign medical school, government employment, self-assessed practice style, whether they were family physicians, and sex. There was no evidence that physician income, desire for income, or pace of practice had any effect on the amount of services physicians used in the "care" of the patients in the hypothetical cases. These findings suggest that if physicians induce demand for services in primary care, it is a minor factor in the increase of health care costs.