Regional and individual differences in physician practices for joint-ventured versus non-joint-ventured physicians

This article compares characteristics of physicians who have invested in health care business (joint ventures) to characteristics of physicians who have not, based on a survey of Florida physicians.

In early 1990, a survey was mailed to a stratified random sample of 1,000 Florida physicians. Half were randomly selected from lists of joint-ventured physicians who had been identified as owners in a previous study by the Florida Health Care Cost Containment Board. The remaining half were assumed to be non-joint-ventured (although incomplete results from the previous study meant that some of these physicians would be joint ventured as well). We tagged survey variables with additional variables from the same year representing exogenous influences.

The survey was mailed to a stratified random sample of physicians across specialty and geographic area, with half to identified joint-ventured physicians and half to a control group, some of whom were expected to be joint-ventured. Thus, results regarding differences would be understated. Key variables include referring versus nonreferring physician, to shed light on motivation for joint-venturing; clientele served, to see if systematic differences had implications related to access for poor or underserved persons; geographic area, to see if joint-ventures were undertaken to increase access in rural areas; and other practice variables such as size and type of practice.

Data from all received surveys were encoded and analyzed using SPSS. Incomplete surveys were also encoded so that all information would be available for possible use.

Results indicate that joint-ventured physicians are more likely than non-joint-ventured physicians to be referring physicians. Also, joint-ventured physicians report serving lower proportions of Medicaid and self-pay (uninsured) patients and higher proportions of Medicare patients. Joint-ventured physicians are also more likely to practice in urban areas, to practice full time, to be members of larger practices, and to practice in group practices. Further, joint-ventured physicians are more likely to practice in areas with high proportions of Medicare patients.

Policymakers should continue to regard physician joint ventures as problematic, since results of this study indicate that physicians who engage in a joint venture almost always have the ability to refer patients to that joint venture due to the nature of their practices. Results also show that joint ventures are associated with decreased access: that is, they provide care to lower proportions of poor and underserved patients and rural patients than their non-joint ventured counterparts.