Community Tracking Study Physician Survey, 1998-1999: [United States]

This study comprises the second round of the physician survey component of the Community Tracking Study (CTS) sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The CTS is a national study
designed to track changes in the American health care system and the effects of
the changes on care delivery and on individuals. Central to the design
of the CTS is its community focus. Sixty sites (51 metropolitan areas
and 9 nonmetropolitan areas) were randomly selected to form the core
of the CTS and to be representative of the nation as a whole. As in
the first round of the physician survey (COMMUNITY TRACKING STUDY
PHYSICIAN SURVEY, 1996-1997: [UNITED STATES] (ICPSR 2597)), the second
round was administered to physicians in the 60 CTS sites and to a
supplemental national sample of physicians. The survey instrument
collected information on physician supply and specialty distribution,
practice arrangements and physician ownership of practices, physician
time allocation, sources of practice revenue, level and determinants
of physician compensation, provision of charity care, career
satisfaction, physicians' perceptions of their ability to deliver
care, views on care management strategies, and various other aspects of physicians' practice of medicine. In addition, primary care
physicians (PCPs) were asked to recommend courses of action in response to some vignettes of clinical presentations for which there was no prescribed method of treatment.

Dataset 3, the Site and County Crosswalk Data File, identifies the counties that constitute each CTS site.

Dataset 4, the Physician Survey Summary File, contains site-level estimates and standard errors of the estimates for selected physician characteristics, e.g., the percentage of physicians who were foreign medical school graduates, the mean age of physicians, and the mean percentage of patient care practice revenue from Medicaid.