Table 1.

Baseline Characteristics of Practices and Patients

	NP or PA	Rheumatologist only	p-values
N patients	158	143
N visits	1168	814
N rheumatologists	7	7
N of NPs or PAs	6	NA
Visits per patients, mean (SD)*	7.4 (2.6)	5.7 (1.9)	<.0001
Seen by mid-level provider only	723 (61.9%)	--
Seen by rheumatologist only	320 (27.4%)	814 (100.0%)
Seen by both providers	125 (10.7%)	--
Female sex	126 (80%)	106 (74%)	0.27
Disease duration
<2 years	17 (11.0%)	12 (8.8%)	0.27
2–5 years	20 (13.0%)	13 (9.6%)
5–10 years	42 (27.3%)	29 (21.3%)
10+ years	75 (48.7%)	82 (60.3%)
Missing	4 (2.5%)	7 (4.9%)
Seropositive, n (%)	76 (68.5%)	67 (69.8%)	0.07
Disease activity at first visit			0.08
Remission	29 (32.9%)	33 (28.7%)
Low	27 (30.7%)	26 (22.6%)
Moderate	24 (27.3%)	35 (30.4%)
High	8 (9.1%)	24 (18.3%)

NP, nurse practitioner; PA, physician assistant; SD, standard deviation. Seropositive refers to rheumatoid factor or anti-CCP antibody. This variable had 34% missing for patients seen at practices with mid-level providers and 32% missing for the other practices.

^*In the NP/PA group: average visits by provider were as follows: 4.6 NP or PA only, 2.0 rheumatologist only, and 0.8 to both.