Table 4.

Correlation Between Primary Care Physician / Gastroenterologist Density and Incidence of Late-stage Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Before (1997-1999) and After (2004-2006) Medicare Coverage of Colonoscopy for Routine CRC Screening

	Primary care physicians		Gastroenterologists
	Correlation coefficient (p-value)		Correlation coefficient (p-value)
	1997–1999	2004–2006	1997–1999	2004–2006
Metropolitan status
Non-metropolitan	-0.31 (p = 0.07)	-0.39 (p = 0.03)	-0.22 (p = 0.21)	-0.41 (p = 0.02)
Metropolitan	0.19 (p = 0.29)	-0.05 (p = 0.79)	0.13 (p = 0.49)	0.00 (p = 0.99)