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Physicians

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Journal Article
Female Physicians Earn $2 Million Less Than Male Physicians Over Their Careers
RAND researchers used data from 80,342 full-time U.S. physicians to estimate career differences in income between men and women. They found that, over a simulated 40-year career, female physicians earned about $2 million less than male physicians.
Dec 10, 2021
News Release
Despite Push to Reward Physicians for Quality and Value, Most Health Systems Base Pay on Volume
Despite efforts by insurance companies and other payers to move toward compensating physicians based on the quality and value of care they provide, most physicians employed in group practices owned by health systems are paid primarily based on the volume of care they provide.
Jan 28, 2022

Explore Physicians

Brochure
A New System Dynamics Model of the U.S. Physician Workforce
Historically, the supply of physicians has been too limited to meet Americans’ medical needs. Researchers at RAND and the Association of American Medical Colleges developed a system dynamics model to better understand physician workforce dynamics.
Nov 30, 2023
Journal Article
Within‐Physician Differences in Patient Sharing Between Primary Care Physicians and Cardiologists Who Treat White and Black Patients With Heart Disease
Within-physician Black-White differences in patient sharing exist and may contribute to disparities in cardiac care.
Nov 22, 2023
Journal Article
Effect of a Peer Comparison and Educational Intervention on Medical Test Conversation Quality: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Results of this initial trial suggest that future interventions to improve medical test conversations and reduce test overuse might focus on easing physician adoption barriers and leveraging patient-clinician relationships.
Nov 13, 2023
News Release
State Policies Requiring Education for Buprenorphine Prescribers Boosts Use of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
States that want to increase access to buprenorphine, a lifesaving medication used to treat opioid use disorder, should consider efforts to enhance professional education and clinician knowledge.
May 26, 2023
Journal Article
An Exploratory Analysis of Differential Prescribing of High-Risk Opioids by Insurance Type Among Patients Seen by the Same Clinician
The objective of this paper is to explore how high-risk opioid analgesic prescribing varies by payer type among patients seeing the same prescriber and identify clinician characteristics associated with variable prescribing.
Feb 8, 2023
Report
Health Care Consolidation: What Does the Evidence Say?
Hospital horizontal consolidation is associated with higher prices paid to providers. And there is some evidence of the same for vertical consolidation of hospitals and physician practices. What effect might the No Surprises Act—created to protect consumers from surprise medical bills—have on consolidation trends?
Sep 30, 2022
Journal Article
Physician Organizations' Use of Behavioral Nudges to Influence Physician Behavior
This paper investigates adoption of behavioral nudges by health system-affiliated physician organizations (POs), types of nudges being used, PO leader perceptions of nudge effectiveness, and implementation challenges.
Sep 20, 2022
Periodical
RAND Review: July-August 2022
Features explore environmental racism; the economic value to the UK of improving languages education in schools; and causes of civilian harm in Raqqa, Syria, and ways to reduce civilian casualties in current and future military operations.
Jul 8, 2022
Commentary
Promoting Patient-Clinician Conversations to Reduce Cascades of Care
A cascade of care is a seemingly uncontrollable sequence of medical services that is driven by the desire to avoid even the smallest risk of a bad outcome. What drives cascades? And what interventions might mitigate them?
Apr 27, 2022
News Release
Opioid Prescribing Declines, but Cuts Are Not Uniform Across Locations, Age Groups, or Type of Prescriber
The volume of prescription opioids dispensed from retail pharmacies declined by 21 percent from 2008 to 2018, but the decline was not uniform across geographic areas, among types of patients, or by type of prescriber.
Dec 27, 2021
Blog
Gender Pay Gap Among Doctors, America's Labor Shortage, 'Hacking Equity': RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on the pay gap between female and male doctors, understanding America’s weird job market, social and emotional learning, and more.
Dec 17, 2021
Journal Article
Physician Compensation In Physician-Owned And Hospital-Owned Practices
Vertical integration of physician practices with hospitals or health systems was associated with lower income for nonsurgical specialists, no difference in income for primary care physicians, and slightly higher income for surgical specialists.
Dec 10, 2021
Report
Claims-Based Reporting of Post-Operative Visits for Procedures with 10- or 90-Day Global Periods: Updated Results Using Calendar Year 2018 Data
The authors of this report summarize patterns of post-operative visits for surgical procedures furnished in 2018 and paid for by Medicare. This report follows an earlier report that summarized these patterns from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018.
Sep 14, 2021
Report
Claims-Based Reporting of Post-Operative Visits for Procedures with 10- or 90-Day Global Periods: Updated Results Using Calendar Year 2019 Data
The authors of this report summarize patterns of post-operative visits for surgical procedures furnished in calendar year 2019 and paid for by Medicare. This report follows two earlier reports that summarized these patterns for earlier periods.
Sep 14, 2021
Report
Using Claims-Based Estimates of Post-Operative Visits to Revalue Procedures with 10- and 90-Day Global Periods: Updated Results Using Calendar Year 2019 Data
This report describes how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could use claims-based data on post-operative visits to adjust the valuations of surgical procedures with 10- and 90-day global periods.
Sep 14, 2021
News Release
Most Prescriptions for Opioid Addiction Medication Buprenorphine Are Written by a Small Number of Providers
Half of all patient-months of buprenorphine treatment during 2016 and 2017 were prescribed by just 4.9% of the physicians and other providers who prescribed the drug during the period.
Jun 1, 2021
Journal Article
Capsule Commentary for Azcarate Et Al., Medical Reasons for Marijuana Use, Forms of Use, and Patient Perception of Physician Attitudes Among the US Population
Commentary on an article by Azcarate et al., assessing U.S. adults' motivations for and perceived physician attitudes towards medical cannabis use.
Apr 13, 2021
Journal Article
Primary Care Physician Migration Patterns and Their Implications for Workforce Distribution
Using primary care physician practice locations, we described physician migration between 2008 and 2013. We found very little physician migration; however, among those who did change, net movement was away from rural counties and HPSAs.
Feb 12, 2021

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RAND Topic:
Physicians

Topic Synonyms:
Doctors;
Surgeons

Research conducted by

RAND Health Care

Researcher Spotlight

Eric Apaydin

Adjunct Policy Researcher

Eric Apaydin is an adjunct policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He is also a core investigator in the Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation, and Policy at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. Apaydin is primarily interested in health care workforce research…
Carl Berdahl

Affiliated Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher

Carl Berdahl (he/him) is an affiliated adjunct physician policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Also an emergency physician and health services researcher at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his primary research objective is to improve the quality and safety of emergency care by designing better…

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