Impact of a cost-containment educational program on housestaff ambulatory clinic charges

A cost-containment project was established to determine if a broad educational program that coupled clinical logic with feedback of charges to internal medicine residents in an ambulatory clinic setting could alter behavior. The project was evaluated by comparing charge data from a preintervention comparison year with charge data from the intervention year. Decreases in charges for laboratory procedures occurred in six of the seven diagnostic categories during intervention and were significant (t-test) for four categories. Regression analysis evaluated the influence of the intervention and 12 other variables on charges and demonstrated that the intervention was associated with a mean reduction of lab charges of $ 6.30 (p less than 0.0001) and a mean reduction of total encounter charges of $ 10.36 (p less than 0.01). We conclude that our educational program resulted in a decrease in mean laboratory changes and total charges for ambulatory encounters.