Payments for care to physicians vary substantially by the specialty of the physician and by payer. Physician payment levels are influenced by factors such as complexity of services provided, length of visit, local market conditions and payment generosity of insurance plans. Understanding variation in physician payment has important implications for access, cost, and quality of care.
Based on data from the Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC), this Statistical Brief provides descriptive statistics for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population illustrating variation in both total payments (expenses) and out-of-pocket payments per office-based physician visit across selected specialty types in 2016. In addition, variation within specialty type by insurance coverage is also presented. Estimates are shown for the eight physician specialties with the highest number of visits in an office-based setting and a ninth catchall category that encompasses all other physician specialty types. These categories are shown in the following table:
[Table: see text]
Estimates are also shown for visits by persons covered by Medicare, private insurance, and/or Medicaid at the time of the visit (see Definitions section for more details). Only differences in estimates that are significant at the 0.05 level are noted.