Rural residence and migration for specialty physician care

This article describes why rural residents migrate or travel outside their local market area for specialty physician care. Data were collected through a random mail survey of persons residing in Iowa's rural counties. The results imply that migration for specialty care is not simply a function of a low perceived availability of local specialty physicians. Managers of rural and urban health care systems may need to rethink the extent to which specialty physician services should be distributed across rural markets.     

Access to Spanish-speaking physicians in California: supply, insurance, or both

BACKGROUND: National studies report patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) have difficulty finding bilingual physicians; however, it is unclear whether this situation is primarily a result of an inadequate supply of bilingual physicians or a lack of the insurance coverage necessary to gain access to bilingual physicians. In California, 12% of urban residents are Spanish-speaking with some limited proficiency in English. The majority of these residents (67%) are uninsured or on Medicaid. METHODS: In 2001, we performed a mailed survey of a probability sample of primary care and specialist physicians practicing in California. We received 1364 completed questionnaires from 2240 eligible physicians (61%). Physicians were asked about their demographics, practice characteristics, whether they were fluent in Spanish, and whether they had Medicaid or uninsured patients in their practice. RESULTS: Twenty-six percent of primary care and 22% of specialist physicians in the 13 urban study counties reported that they were fluent in Spanish. This represented 146 primary care and 66 specialist physicians who spoke Spanish for every 100,000 Spanish-speaking LEP residents. In contrast to the general population, there were only 48 Spanish-speaking primary care and 29 specialist physician equivalents available for every 100,000 Spanish-speaking LEP patients on Medicaid and even fewer (34 primary care and 4 specialist) Spanish-speaking physician equivalents for every 100,000 Spanish-speaking physician equivalents for uninsured Spanish-speaking LEP patients. CONCLUSION: Although the supply of Spanish-speaking physicians in California is relatively high, the insurance status of LEP Spanish-speaking patients limits their access to the physicians. Addressing health insurance-related barriers to care for those on Medicaid and the uninsured is critical to improving health care for Spanish-speaking LEP patients.     

Development of the rural health insurance system in China

Ever since the collapse of the once successful Rural Cooperative Medical System (RCMS) in the early 1980s, when China transformed its system of collective agricultural production to private production, many rural communities, especially the poorer residents, have faced several major problems. In 1993, insurance coverage for rural residents was already low, at 12.8%. By 1998, only 9.5% of the rural population was insured. User charges have effectively blocked access for many rural residents who lack adequate income to purchase basic health care when needed. Impoverishment due to medical expenses is also a serious problem, which begs the question: why has there been no vigorous development of the rural health insurance system in China despite the country's rapid economic growth? This paper analyzes the major underlying reasons for the lack of rural health insurance in China. We found that lack of demand for the voluntary community financing schemes and inadequate government policies are the two major hindrances. Recently, the Chinese government announced a new rural health financing policy that relies on 'matching-funds' by the central and local governments as well as household contributions. The potential for success of this new model might be inferred from China's past experiences, as well as from the pilot projects that are underway.     

Rural healthcare needs and solutions

Many rural communities are finding it necessary to create innovative ways to make healthcare more accessible to their residents. Successful rural healthcare delivery systems require the resources of an institution willing to serve the rural healthcare market, a community wanting to improve its healthcare, and dedicated practitioners. Physicians must be willing to see Medicaid and charity care patients. If physicians in the community are too busy or unwilling to accept indigent patients, the community may need more physicians. When the community recruits additional physicians, leaders must clarify that all physicians have a responsibility to serve indigent patients. As a result, a community-wide healthcare planning process is essential. Because residents might not always be aware that they should receive certain routine healthcare services or how to access those services, the community must establish strategies to reduce this knowledge gap. Urban healthcare centers can help by bringing health screening services to the rural community and by providing health education programs. Providers can close another part of the knowledge gap by helping patients fill out the insurance forms required to receive payment and by helping them find and apply for indigent patient coverage. To help solve the physician shortage problem in rural areas, communities can work with urban healthcare providers to purchase or start new practices in rural areas and then supplement the practices with additional primary care physicians or other healthcare practitioners.     

Identifying barriers to move to better health coverage: preferences for health insurance benefits among the rural poor population in La Guajira,Colombia

Even though access to health insurance in Colombia has improved since the implementation of the 1993 health reforms (Law 100), universal coverage has not yet been accomplished. There is still a segment of the population under the low‐income (subsidized) health insurance policy or without health insurance altogether. The purpose of this research was to identify preferences and behavior regarding health insurance among the subsidized rural population in La Guajira, Colombia, and to understand why that population remains under the subsidized health insurance policy. The field experiment gathered information from 400 households regarding their socioeconomic situation, health conditions, and preferences for health insurance characteristics. Results suggest that the surveyed population gives priority to expanded family coverage, physician and hospital choice, and access to specialists, rather than to attributes associated with co‐payments or premiums. That indicates that people value healthcare benefits and family coverage more than health insurance expenses, and policy makers could use these preferences to enroll subsidized population into the contributory regime. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

浙江省嘉兴市新农合与城镇居民医保整合的探索与实践

2003年浙江省嘉兴市各县（市、区）成为全国首批新农合试点城市。十年来,嘉兴市结合经济社会发展特点,积极探索新型农村合作医疗和城镇居民基本医疗保障制度整合,建立了城乡居民合作医疗保险制度,实现了城乡居民医疗保障一体化和医疗保障全覆盖。通过加大政府投入,完善补偿方案,城乡居民的医疗保障水平不断提高,结合公立医院改革和基层卫生改革试点工作,多措并举,实现了城乡居民合作医疗保险费用有效控制,提高了卫生资源和医疗保障资源的有效利用,促进了基层医疗卫生服务的良性发展,巩固发展了城乡居民合作医疗保险制度,提高了城乡居民的健康水平。     

推行家庭签约医生服务模式的政策思考——基于四川省试点地区调查

家庭签约医生服务是建立分级诊疗体系的基础.根据对四川省试点地区卫生行政部门和基层医疗卫生机构管理者、家庭医生服务团队长和乡村医生的访谈及问卷调查结果,针对家庭签约医生服务存在的问题,提出加快推行家庭签约医生服务模式的政策思考,为决策者进一步优化政策提供参考.     

Physician knowledge and attitudes about health insurance after the introduction of capitated health care plans

A two-part closed-end survey similar to a survey done in 1980 was given to 25 family physicians at an academic family medical center to assess physician knowledge about five insurance programs covering most of the patients seeking care in the center, and to assess physician attitudes about the capitated insurance plan with which the clinic was affiliated. Results did not differ significantly from those obtained in a similar survey four years earlier at the same center. Physicians correctly identified benefits offered by insurance programs only about one half of the time and many did not ascertain patient insurance coverage at all. Physicians considered the most important advantages of capitated health care to be the patient protection from fees for services obtained, the coverage for health care maintenance, and the potential for controlling health care costs. Physician-perceived disadvantages included difficulties controlling costs generated by other specialists, dealing with after-the-fact authorization requests, controlling access to services, and obtaining information about costs within the capitated system.     

Realized Access to Physician Services Among the Elderly in West Texas

The purpose of this study is to identify populations in a sparsely populated region that are less likely to obtain medical care. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of more than 5,000 elderly persons who participated in telephone interviews after being identified through more than 65,000 calls to residential listings. Subjects were persons aged 65 years and older who resided in 108 counties in western Texas. The response rate was 72%. The probability of seeing a physician in the last 6 months for urban and rural residents was modeled using multiple logistic regression analysis. Among rural residents, characteristics that were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with not recently visiting a physician when health status is held constant included belief in home remedies, having less than a high school education, lack of health insurance, and low income. Among urban residents, Hispanic ethnicity and skepticism about medical care were negatively associated with having a recent visit, whereas being religious was positively associated. Despite the availability of Medicare coverage, several subgroups of the elderly population have impaired access to medical care in this sparsely populated region. Intensified outreach efforts are indicated.     

A Strategy to Increase the Number of Urban Family Practice Resident Physicians Who Enter Rural Practice

Physician geographic maldistribution is a problem in the United States health care system. Innovative strategies are needed to entice resident family physicians training in the larger, more numerous suburban and urban training programs to practice in rural areas upon completing their training. This paper describes a strategy used at St. Elizabeth Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program, Dayton, OH, to encourage rural practice. In the St. Elizabeth plan, the interested family practice resident moonlights in a rural practice provided by the local county hospital. The county medical staff covers the resident physician's practice during the frequent absences. The residency program faculty provide on-site supervision, telephone back-up coverage, and practice consultation. The county hospital provides billing services; the resident physician retains 100 percent of collections. The resident physician gains exposure to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed in rural practice. Upon completion of residency training, the physician remains in practice and is not required to pay back any expenses incurred by the hospital. Two resident physicians participate currently; three others have expressed interest in practicing in the community. A similar plan might work in parts of the United States where, like Ohio, training programs and rural communities are not far apart.     

Health Care Expenditures for Urban and Rural Veterans in Veterans Health Administration Care

Objective. To compare Veterans Health Administration (VA) patients, non-VA-using veterans, and nonveterans, separated by urban/rural residence and age group, on their use of major categories of medical care and payment sources.
Data Source. Expenditures for health care–using men in Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996 through 2004.
Study Design. Retrospective, cross-sectional analysis.
Data Collection/Extraction Methods. Controlling for demographics, health status, and insurance, we compared groups on population-weighted expenditures for inpatient, hospital-based outpatient, office-based, pharmacy, and other care, by major payers (self/family, private insurance, Medicare, other sources, and VA).
Results. VA users received most of their health care outside of the VA system, paid through private insurance or Medicare; self-payments were substantial. VA users under 65 reported worse health if they were rural residents but also lower expenditures overall and less care through private insurance.
Conclusions. VA health care users get most of their medical care from non-VA providers. Working-age VA users have less insurance coverage and rely more on VA care if they live in rural areas.     

Health status and health professional visits in a rural area.

Visits to physicians (MDs), physician assistants (PAs) or nurse practitioners (NPs) by residents of a rural county in the upper-middle west of the United States were analysed in this study. A telephone survey yielded 250 responses. The dependent variable was the natural logarithm of the number of times the respondent had seen a health professional (MD, PA or NP) in the past two years. Predisposing, enabling and medical need variables were tested as potential predictors of visits. Self-rated health status, being unable to perform usual activities, and feeling upset or 'down in the dumps' proved to be important predictors, as was having a usual source of care. Health insurance coverage and family income was not, however. Unexpectedly, smokers also reported more visits. The implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Physician Staffing of Small Rural Hospital Emergency Departments: Rapid Change and Escalating Cost

We surveyed all 37 rural Washington state hospitals with fewer than 100 beds to determine how rural emergency departments are staffed by physicians and to estimate rural hospital payments for emergency department physician services. Only five hospital emergency departments (14%) were still covered by the traditional rotation of local practitioners and billed on a fee-for-service basis. Ten hospitals (27%) paid local private practitioners to provide emergency department coverage. Twelve other hospitals (32%) hired visiting emergency department physicians to cover only weekends or evenings. The remaining 10 rural emergency departments (27%) were staffed entirely by external contract physicians. Thus, 86 percent of rural hospitals contracted for emergency department coverage, and 59 percent obtained some or all of this service from nonlocal physicians. Most of the 32 hospitals with some form of contracted services have changed to this emergency department coverage in the last few years. The cost of these services is high, particularly for the smallest hospitals that have fewer than eight emergency department visits per day and pay physician wages of nearly $100 per patient visit. Emergency staffing responsibility has shifted from local practitioners to the hospital administrators because of rural physician scarcity and a desire to improve quality and convenience. The cost of these changes may further undermine the economic viability of the smaller rural hospitals.     

Childhood immunization practices of primary care physicians.

OBJECTIVE: To assess if immunization utilization practices differ between rural and urban primary care physicians in Kentucky. DESIGN: Survey of 200 primary care physicians. PARTICIPANTS: Pediatricians, family physicians, and general practitioners in Kentucky. SELECTION PROCEDURES: Participants completed a 20-item questionnaire that surveyed selected demographics with regard to the physician and practice, immunizations offered to children, and reasons why the responding physicians did not offer immunizations and where they referred patients for this service. RESULTS: Physicians practicing in rural counties offered immunizations to their patients less frequently than did urban physicians (54% vs 77%). Rural and urban physicians cited immunization costs to patients as the chief reason that immunizations were not used more often and referred patients primarily to county health departments. CONCLUSIONS: Rising costs have limited physician use of immunizations in rural areas to a greater extent than that seen in urban areas. This may make access to immunizations more difficult for children living in rural areas.     

The Rural–Urban Divide: Health Services Utilization Among Older Mexicans in Mexico

Context: Mexico. Purpose: Using the health care service utilization model as a framework, this paper will analyze the differences in health care service use among older Mexicans living in urban and rural areas in Mexico. Methods: The Mexican Health and Aging Survey (MHAS) data were used to test the applicability of Andersen's “model of health services” of predisposing (ie, age, sex, etc.), enabling (education, insurance coverage, etc.) and need factors (diabetes, hypertension, etc.) to predict ever being in the hospital and physician visits in the past year by place of residence (urban, rural, semi-rural). Findings: Results showed that older Mexicans living in the most rural areas (populations of 2,500 or fewer) were significantly less likely to have been hospitalized in the previous year and visited the physician less often (P < .0001) than their urban counterparts. The significant difference in hospitalization between rural and urban residing older Mexicans was largely accounted for by having health care coverage. Certain need factors such as diabetes, previous heart attack, hypertension, depression, and functional limitations predicted frequency of physician visits and hospitalization, but they did not explain variations between rural and urban older Mexicans. Conclusions: Not having insurance coverage was associated with a lower likelihood of spending an overnight visit in the hospital and visiting a physician for older Mexicans. This lower utilization may be due to barriers to access rather than better health.     

Why Do Rural Primary Care Physicians Sell Their Practices?

This study evaluates why rural primary care physicians sell their practices. A random sample of rural primary care practices in California, Utah, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia were surveyed to investigate changes in ownership of the practices during the period 1995-1998. These five states were selected because they represent areas with different experiences with physician-hospital integration and varied rates of managed care penetration. A series of logistic regressions were conducted to examine the factors that led independent physicians to sell their practices to either nonlocal buyers, local hospitals, or local physicians. Findings suggest that sales to nonlocal buyers represent the majority of practice ownership changes. The motivations for ceding control to nonlocal buyers center on managed care concerns, recruitment concerns, and administrative burdens. Sellers were also concerned about their level of net income prior to being acquired. However, the preacquisition financial concerns of sellers were not significantly stronger than the financial concerns of practices that remained independent. The environmental conditions that motivate rural physicians to sell their practices are not expected to improve. Therefore, additional sales of rural primary care practices to nonlocal buyers are expected. Further research is necessary to determine whether this shift in control will lead to changes in the quality or accessibility of care.     

Retention of Physician Assistants in Rural Health Clinics

CONTEXT: Improvement of rural health care access has been a guiding principle of federal and state policy regarding physician assistants (PAs). PURPOSE: To determine the factors that influence autonomous rural PAs (who work less than 8 hours per week with their supervising physician) to remain in remote locations. METHODS: A qualitative exploratory study was undertaken in 8 rural Texas towns, including direct observation of clinics, semi-structured interviews with PAs, and focus groups with community residents. FINDINGS: The major factors contributing to retention among autonomous rural PAs include: confidence in the ability to provide adequate health care, desire for small-town life, residing in the community, and being involved with the community. Both PAs and residents thought the level of their town's health care was moderately good but could be improved. The clinic allowed easy access for primary care and minor injuries. Town residents and PAs also expressed a desire for major improvements including a pharmacy, visiting specialists, and additional medical equipment. Not all residents sought medical care at the clinic, with some electing to travel to physicians in larger towns. CONCLUSIONS: Rural community residents have more confidence in and satisfaction with PAs who have remained in a clinic for several years. In order to increase retention rates, PAs committed to autonomous, rural primary care would benefit from additional training, particularly in emergency medicine, the benefits of community involvement, and adaptation to the local culture.     

基于两部模型的家庭医生签约对社区居民医疗费用影响的实证分析

目的：分析家庭医生签约对于社区居民自付医疗费用的影响,探讨签约对缓解居民医疗费用负担的成效。方法：2019年7—9月在厦门、杭州、上海、北京分别选择两个社区卫生服务中心所在街道的居民,根据调研时最新的家庭医生签约率,采用多阶段整群随机抽样的方法获取样本1 508人。医疗费用以基层医疗卫生机构次均就诊费用、次均住院费用以及年医疗总费用（均为自付）为指标,采用两部模型分析家庭医生签约对医疗费用的影响。结果：签约家庭医生的社区居民相较于未签约居民医疗服务利用率（尤其是基层医疗机构服务利用率）显著提高,但是没有显著影响次均就诊费用和年医疗总费用;降低了住院服务利用率,并且次均住院费用减少了673元。结论：家庭医生可以促使基层首诊、分级诊疗格局的形成,但是其作为医疗费用守门人的职责还需进一步加强。这需要进一步提升基层医疗机构和家庭医生服务能力,加强团队间的协作,完善与上级医疗机构或者专科医生的合作机制,突出医疗保险的杠杆作用。