Doctors Who Have Studied Managed Care Less Likely To Enroll in HMO Themselves, Study Says

Doctors who are experts in the study of managed care are half as likely as nonphysician managed care experts and academicians in other fields to enroll in an HMO, according to a study published in the current issue of the journal Medical Care. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the RAND Corporation surveyed 437 managed care experts at 17 U.S. universities, some of whom were physicians and some of whom were not. They also surveyed professors at the same institutions who were not managed care experts but "ostensibly" had the same health plan choices available to them. Researchers found that only 14.9% of managed care experts who were physicians chose to enroll in an HMO, compared to 27.6% of nonphysician experts and 26.6% of academicians in other fields (Studdert et al., RAND Health, May 2002). In general, physician experts chose health plans that had fewer restrictions on their access to service and choice of doctors, including fee-for-service and point-of-service plans, USA Today reports (USA Today, 4/30). Researchers concluded that physician experts might avoid HMO plans because of a "stronger distaste for the constraints on choice and access that typically accompany" such coverage. In addition, researchers hypothesized that physician experts might have a "superior ability to absorb, understand and use information" about health plans (RAND Health, May 2002). David Studdert of the Harvard School of Public Health, the study's lead author, said that "one cannot rule out the possibility that the experts' choices stem from special insights into managed care that nonexperts don't have" (USA Today, 4/30).