Is Patient-Physician Gender Concordance Related to the Quality of Patient Care Experiences?

There is great interest in identifying factors that are related to positive patient experiences such as physician communication style. Documented gender-specific physician communication and patient behavior differences raise the question of whether gender concordant relationships (i.e., both the provider and patient share the same gender) might affect patient experiences.

Assess whether patient experiences are more positive in gender concordant primary care relationships.

Statewide telephone surveys. Linear mixed regression models to estimate the association of CAHPS scores with patient gender and gender concordance.

Two probability samples of primary care Medicaid patients in Connecticut in 2017 (5/17-7/17) and 2019 (7/19-10/19).

Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CG-CAHPS) survey augmented with questions about aspects of care most salient to PCMH-designated organizations and two questions to assess access to mental health services.

There were no significant effects of gender concordance and differences in experiences by patient gender were modest.

This study did not support the suggestion that patient and physician gender and gender concordance have an important effect on patient experiences.