News: PCPs have little to no effect on readmission rates, study finds
Average hospital readmission rates associated with individual primary care physicians (PCP) show almost no variation, so incentivizing PCPs to change practice to lower the rates may not make sense, according to new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The researchers analyzed 565,579 hospital admissions in Texas between 2012 and 2015 and 4,230 PCPs, according to Medscape Medical News. They looked specifically at what primary care factors could influence readmissions and adjusted for all of which they had data, including patient and hospital characteristics. Then the researchers measured what effect individual PCPs had on the rates and found no effect.
During the time period examined, the average risk-standardized rate of 30-day readmissions was 12.9%. Of the 4,230 PCPs, only one physician had a readmission rate that was significantly higher than the average and none had a significantly lower rate, Medscape Medical News reported. The 10th and 90th percentile of readmission rates for PCPs were 12.4% and 13.4% respectively and each varied from the average by only 0.5 percentage points.
According to the researchers, their findings have policy implications, especially for pay-for-performance programs such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which assumes rewarding and penalizing PCPs for the way they practice will lower readmission rates.
Editor’s note: To read Medscape Medical News’ extended coverage of this story, click here. To read the complete study, click here.