Community Tracking Study Physician Survey, 1996-1997: [United States]

Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this survey is one component of the Community Tracking Study (CTS), a national study designed to track changes in the 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. The Physician Survey was
administered to physicians in the 60 CTS sites and to a supplemental
national sample of physicians. Information gathered by the survey
instrument includes physician supply and specialty distribution,
practice arrangements and physician ownership of practices, sources of
practice revenue, level and determinants of physician compensation,
effects of care management strategies, and physicians' allocation of
time, provision of charity care, career satisfaction, and perceptions
of their ability to deliver care. For primary care physicians, the
survey instrument also provided vignettes of various clinical
presentations for which there was no prescribed method of treatment.
These physicians were asked to indicate the percentage of patients for
whom they would recommend the course of action specified in each
particular vignette. Part 3, the Site and County Crosswalk Data File,
describes which counties constitute each site. Part 4, the Physician
Survey Summary File, contains site-level averages and percentages and
standard errors of these estimates for selected attributes, e.g., the
percentage of physicians who were foreign medical school graduates,
average age of physicians, average percentage of patient care practice
revenue from Medicaid, etc.