Inexperience and uncertainties of doctors 'enemies' of the spending review. Indeed, according to a study published in 'Health Affairs', the doctor's characteristics have a direct influence on health care costs. In fact, less experienced white coats tend to spend much more money treating patients than their more experienced colleagues, explain the researchers at the Rand Corporation and the University of Pittsburgh.
According to scholars, these results could have significant implications for decision-makers in times of crisis, when it comes to 'designing' networks of specialists or setting up programs that reward health professionals who provide quality care at a lower cost.
"These findings are provocative, and more examination is needed" on this issue, says Ateev Mehrotra, an associate at the University of Pittsburgh School and a researcher at the nonprofit Rand Corporation research institute. "But it's possible that a driver of healthcare costs is that newly trained doctors tend to practice more expensive medicine." In practice, prescribing more diagnostic tests, or more expensive medicines, perhaps precisely because they are less experienced and safe than colleagues who have more years of practice behind them. To draw an identikit of the most expensive doctor for the health service, the researchers used data relating to over one million people residing in Massachusetts from 2004 to 2005, building the 'health expenditure' profiles of the patients of over 12,000 doctors in the american state.
Costs were assessed across 600 types of "care episodes," including a patient's condition, its severity, and the procedures performed. Well, the widest gap in costs is obtained by comparing the data of the 'newbies' with the operators with the greatest length of service. Physicians who had less than 10 years of experience were found to have overall costs 13.2% higher than their colleagues with 40 or more years of service. On the other hand, operators with 10-19 years of experience behind them have cost profiles higher than 10% (compared to more mature colleagues), a percentage which for doctors with 20-29 years of experience drops to +6.5% and for those with 30-39 years of +2.5%. No association was found, however, between costs and other physician characteristics, such as a malpractice report or disciplinary action, or the size of the facility where a physician worked. The researchers argue that the difference found in the study does not suggest that less experienced doctors, spending more, end up providing a
