Concept: Determining Comprehensiveness of Practice among Physicians

Introduction

Comprehensiveness of practice among physicians is the amount of work done by physicians in settings outside of their offices, including hospital wards, long-term care facilities, emergency rooms, anesthesia and obstetrics wards, and house visits.

In a recent ICES publication ¹ on physician services in Ontario, criteria to determine if a physician provides a given service were as follows:

Emergency Dept	- 50 visits or more per year
Nursing Home	- 50 visits or more per year
Hospital Care	- 50 visits or more per year
House Visits	- 10 visits or more per year
Obstetrics	- At least $400 in billings per year for obstetrical procedures (corresponds to 2 or more deliveries per year)
Anesthesia	- At least $400 in billings per year (36 anesthetic units, or 9 hours of anesthesia time in OR)

To qualify as "Office Only", a physician had to have zero billings for all of the above six categories.

NOTE : This concept has not been validated with MCHP data.

MORE INFORMATION:

• ¹ Chan B (1999). Supply of Physicians' Services in Ontario. Atlas Report 1. Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.