Table 2. Appointment Wait Times.
Characteristic | BCBS | P value | Medicare | P valuea | Medicaid | P valuea |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First available appointment for any clinician, median calendar days (IQR)b | ||||||
Comparison with BCBS | ||||||
All clinics | 7 (2-22) | NA | 7 (2-25) | >.99 | 13 (4-33) | .002 |
PE-owned clinics | 6 (1-26) | 5 (1-24) | .98 | 20 (2-38) | .02 | |
Control clinics | 7 (2-21) | 7 (2-25) | .96 | 11 (5-30) | .06 | |
Comparison between PE-owned and control clinics | ||||||
PE-owned clinics | 6 (1-26) | .67 | 5 (1-24) | .42 | 20 (2-38) | .51 |
Control clinics | 7 (2-21) | 7 (2-25) | 11 (5-30) | |||
First available appointment for MD/DO clinician, median (IQR) | ||||||
Comparison with BCBS | ||||||
All clinics | 13 (4-34) | NA | 13 (4-33) | .95 | 22 (7-43) | .007 |
PE-owned clinics | 10 (4-30) | 10 (3-33) | .92 | 22 (7-43) | .049 | |
Control clinics | 14 (5-34) | 14 (5-34) | .98 | 22 (8-42) | .06 | |
Comparison between PE-owned and control clinics | ||||||
PE-owned clinics | 10 (4-30) | .53 | 10 (3-33) | .57 | 22 (7-43) | .64 |
Control clinics | 14 (5-34) | 14 (5-34) | 22 (8-42) |
Abbreviations: BCBS, Blue Cross Blue Shield; IQR, interquartile range; NA, not applicable; PE, private equity.
For pairwise comparisons between the 3 payment types, the Bonferroni-corrected P value threshold for statistical significance is 0.05/3 = 0.017.
Day 1 was the next day after the call was placed.