Table 2.
Descriptive statistics for 2021 quality payment program physician participants by rurality
| Characteristic |
Overall, N = 209,1521 |
Rural, N = 25,0311 |
Urban, N = 184,1211 |
p value2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice Size | 288 (41, 1,131) | 120 (25, 342) | 344 (45, 1,290) | < 0.001 |
| Number of Medicare Patients | 17,396 (3,773, 48,936) | 6,825 (1,844, 17,362) | 20,765 (4,434, 51,604) | < 0.001 |
| Years in Medicare | 12 (8, 16) | 12 (8, 17) | 12 (8, 16) | < 0.001 |
| Practice Type | < 0.001 | |||
| Group | 187,628 (90%) | 21,936 (88%) | 165,692 (90%) | |
| Individual | 21,524 (10%) | 3,095 (12%) | 18,429 (10%) | |
| Small Practitioner Status | 39,458 (19%) | 5,238 (21%) | 34,220 (19%) | < 0.001 |
| Health Professional Shortage Area | 34,976 (17%) | 15,959 (64%) | 19,017 (10%) | < 0.001 |
| Hospital-Based | 64,239 (31%) | 9,178 (37%) | 55,061 (30%) | < 0.001 |
| Facility Based | 14,805 (7.1%) | 2,425 (9.7%) | 12,380 (6.7%) | < 0.001 |
| Extreme Hardship | 65,639 (31%) | 7,969 (32%) | 57,670 (31%) | 0.1 |
| Final MIPS Score | 98 (91, 100) | 97 (89, 100) | 98 (91, 100) | < 0.001 |
| Certified EHR Status | 153,119 (73%) | 16,127 (64%) | 136,992 (74%) | < 0.001 |
| Promoting Interoperability Score (PIS) | 90 (0, 100) | 80 (0, 100) | 92 (0, 100) | < 0.001 |
| Provider-to-Patient Exchange | 40 (40, 40) | 40 (39, 40) | 40 (40, 40) | < 0.001 |
| Health Information Exchange | 33 (12, 39) | 20 (10, 38) | 34 (12, 39) | < 0.001 |
| Electronic Prescribing Exchange | 10 (10, 10) | 10 (10, 10) | 10 (10, 10) | < 0.001 |
| Public Health/Surveillance Exchange | 10 (9, 10) | 10 (8, 10) | 10 (9, 10) | < 0.001 |
| US Census Region | < 0.001 | |||
| East North Central | 28,139 (13%) | 5,186 (21%) | 22,953 (12%) | |
| East South Central | 9,940 (4.8%) | 2,884 (12%) | 7,056 (3.8%) | |
| Middle Atlantic | 35,020 (17%) | 1,562 (6.2%) | 33,458 (18%) | |
| Mountain | 16,036 (7.7%) | 2,543 (10%) | 13,493 (7.3%) | |
| New England | 7,877 (3.8%) | 1,793 (7.2%) | 6,084 (3.3%) | |
| Pacific | 29,109 (14%) | 1,466 (5.9%) | 27,643 (15%) | |
| South Atlantic | 43,587 (21%) | 3,728 (15%) | 39,859 (22%) | |
| West North Central | 20,741 (9.9%) | 3,258 (13%) | 17,483 (9.5%) | |
| West South Central | 18,703 (8.9%) | 2,611 (10%) | 16,092 (8.7%) | |
1Median (IQR) for continuous variables; n (%) for categorical variables
2Wilcoxon rank sum test; Pearson’s Chi-squared test
Table 2 contains descriptive statistics of the 2021 Quality Payment Program (QPP) physician participants, stratified by rurality. This table presents key characteristics, including practice size, number of Medicare patients, certified EHR status, and Promoting Interoperability Scores, highlighting significant differences between rural and urban providers