Physicians provide one source of information about the quality of care in health plans, but concerns exist that physicians cannot distinguish quality from financial considerations or other underlying attitudes. In this study, HIP Investigator Dr. Maureen Smith examined whether physicians can (a) distinguish different domains of health plan quality and (b) distinguish health plan quality from their underlying attitudes by analyzing data on 419 generalist physicians from four health plans.
These data suggest that physicians can provide information about health plan quality, but it will be important to validate these measures against patient outcomes.
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