Table 3.
Percent of primary care physicians with clinically significant improvement in the timing of their subspecialty referral recommendations with the use of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) by physician and scenario characteristics
| Physician characteristics | % of primary care physicians with clinically significant improvement in their subspecialty referral recommendations* | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unadjusted | p value | Adjusted† (95% CI) | p value | |
| Years in practice: | ||||
| >10 years | 44 | 0.31 | 50 (32-68) | 0.11 |
| ≤ 10 years | 36 | 36 (Ref) | ||
| Practice type: | ||||
| Academic | 56 | 0.07 | 70 (45-87) | 0.01 |
| Other | 37 | 37 (Ref) | ||
| Percent clinical time: | ||||
| <80%, | 26 | 0.15 | 23 (8-49) | 0.13 |
| ≥ 80% | 42 | 42 (Ref) | ||
| Census region: | ||||
| Midwest | 33 | 0.65 | 38 (18-64) | 0.47 |
| South | 38 | 40 (20-64) | 0.56 | |
| West | 39 | 41 (20-66) | 0.60 | |
| Northeast | 48 | 48 (Ref) | ||
| Aware of referral guidelines: | ||||
| Yes | 29 | 0.06 | 29 (15-48) | 0.09 |
| No | 45 | 45 (Ref) | ||
| Clinical scenario: | ||||
| Patient race: | ||||
| White | 57 | <0.001 | 57 (39-73) | <0.001 |
| African American | 25 | 25 (Ref) | ||
| Diabetes | ||||
| Yes | 43 | 0.36 | 42 (26-61) | 0.44 |
| No | 35 | 35 (Ref) | ||
Note. A total of 152 participants with complete data were included in the model
*Clinically significant improvement in subspecialty referral recommendations was defined as present, if primary care physicians selected a serum creatinine-based referral level corresponding to an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) level of < 30 mL/min/1.73m2, but recommended subspecialty referral at level of ≥ 30 mL/min/1.73m2 with the use of eGFR.
†Adjusted for all variables in the table.