Table 1.
Characteristics of a 2014 cohort of practicing radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and other hospital-based physicians in the US
| 2014 Physician Compare Cohort | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radiation Oncologists | Medical Oncologists | Other Hospital-Based Physicians | |||||
| No. | % | No. | % | No. | % | P value* | |
| No. of physicians | 3,743 | 100.0% | 10,270 | 100.0% | 99,802 | 100.0% | N/A |
| Gender | |||||||
| Female | 992 | 26.5% | 3,374 | 32.9% | 26,880 | 26.9% | <0.001 |
| Male | 2,751 | 73.5% | 6,896 | 67.1% | 72,922 | 73.1% | |
| Years in Practice | |||||||
| <10 | 195 | 5.2% | 118 | 1.1% | 6,126 | 6.1% | <0.001 |
| 10–19 | 1,187 | 31.7% | 2,966 | 28.9% | 33,519 | 33.6% | |
| 20–29 | 983 | 26.3% | 3,050 | 29.7% | 27,490 | 27.5% | |
| >=30 | 1,378 | 36.8% | 4,136 | 40.3% | 32,677 | 32.7% | |
| Practice HRR Spending | |||||||
| Low | 365 | 9.8% | 908 | 8.8% | 9,841 | 9.9% | <0.001 |
| Average | 2,046 | 54.7% | 5,393 | 52.5% | 54,109 | 54.2% | |
| High | 1,332 | 35.6% | 3,969 | 38.6% | 35,852 | 35.9% | |
| Practice Setting | |||||||
| Hospital, No/Unknown Affiliation | 620 | 16.6% | 1,455 | 14.2% | 19,414 | 19.5% | <0.001 |
| Hospital, Medical School Affiliated | 1,827 | 48.8% | 5,462 | 53.2% | 54,812 | 54.9% | |
| Hospital, Medical School Affiliated, NCI Designated | 702 | 18.8% | 2,448 | 23.8% | 11,440 | 11.5% | |
| Not Hospital Affiliated | 594 | 15.9% | 905 | 8.8% | 14,136 | 14.2% | |
Abbreviations: No., number; HRR, hospital referral region; NCI, National Cancer Institute.
The estimated total number of physicians in each specialty in 2014 determined as per the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) database. Practicing physicians were determined by participation in Physician Compare, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) quality database that includes all physicians receiving Medicare payments. Specialty group was determined by physician taxonomy and hospital-based physicians were determined per Medicare Data on Provider Practice and Specialty taxonomy classification. Gender and years in practice were reported in the Physician Compare database. To account for regional variation in physician practice setting and spending, we linked NPPES physician practice zip code to Dartmouth Atlas HRR and corresponding total price-, age-, sex-, and race-adjusted Medicare spending per beneficiary. We categorized practice HRR into three spending groups by dividing per-beneficiary spending into quintiles then sub-grouping into tertiles (low, average, and high) with the lowest quintile (≤20th percentile) and highest quintile (>80th percentile) as the distinct low and high categories, respectively. To account for practice-level factors, we linked Physician Compare hospital affiliation data to the NCI SEER-Medicare Hospital File to determine medical school affiliation and NCI designation (clinical or comprehensive).
Chi-square test