Redesigning primary care in an academic medical center: lessons, challenges, and opportunities

Quality of Medication Cost Conversations and Interest in Future Cost Conversations Among Older Adults

BACKGROUND

Medication cost conversations occur less frequently than patients prefer, and it is unclear whether patients have positive experiences with them when they do occur.

OBJECTIVE

To describe patients' experiences discussing their medication costs with their health care team.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional survey.

SETTING

Nationally representative survey fielded in the United States in 2022 (response rate = 48.5%).

PATIENTS

1020 adults over age 65.

MEASUREMENTS

Primary measures were adapted from Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers Survey visit survey v4.0 and captured patients' experiences of medication cost conversations. Additional measures captured patients' interest in future cost conversations, the type of clinicians with whom they would be comfortable discussing costs, and sociodemographic characteristics.

RESULTS

Among 1020 respondents who discussed medication prices with their health care team, 39.3% were 75 or older and 78.6% were non-Hispanic White. Forty-three percent of respondents indicated that their prior medication cost conversation was not easy to understand; 3% indicated their health care team was not respectful and 26% indicated their health care team was somewhat respectful during their last conversation; 48% indicated that there was not enough time. Those reporting that their prior discussion was not easy to understand or that their clinician was not definitely respectful were less likely to be interested in future discussions. Only 6% and 10% of respondents indicated being comfortable discussing medication prices with financial counselors or social workers, respectively. Few differences in responses were observed by survey participant characteristics.

LIMITATIONS

This cross-sectional survey of prior experiences may be subject to recall bias.

CONCLUSION

Among older adults who engaged in prior medication cost conversations, many report that these conversations are not easy to understand and that almost one-third of clinicians were somewhat or not respectful. Efforts to increase the frequency of medication cost conversations should consider parallel interventions to ensure the discussions are effective at informing prescribing decisions and reducing cost-related medication nonadherence.

Analysis of Variation in Organizational Definitions of Primary Care Panels: A Systematic Review

IMPORTANCE

Primary care panel size plays an increasing role in measuring primary care provider (ie, physicians and advanced practice providers, which include nurse practitioners and physician assistants) workload, setting practice capacity, and determining pay and can influence quality of care, access, and burnout. However, reported panel sizes vary widely.

OBJECTIVE

To identify how panels are defined, the degree of variation in these definitions, the consequences of different definitions of panel size, and research on strengths of different approaches.

EVIDENCE REVIEW

Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, and Dissertations and Theses Global databases were searched from inception to April 28, 2021, for subject headings and text words to capture concepts of primary care panel size. Article review and data abstraction were performed independently by 2 reviewers. Main outcomes reported included rules for adding or removing patients from panels, rules for measuring primary care provider resources, consequences of different rules on reported panel size, and research on advantages and disadvantages of different rules.

FINDINGS

The literature search yielded 1687 articles, with 294 potentially relevant articles and 74 containing relevant data. Specific practices were identified from 29 health care systems and 5 empanelment implementation guides. Patients were most commonly empaneled after 1 primary care visit (24 of 34 [70.6%]), but some were empaneled only after several visits (5 [14.8%]), enrollment in a health plan (4 [11.8%]) or any visit to the health care system (1 [3.0%]). Patients were removed when no visit had occurred in a specified look-back period, which varied from 12 to 42 months. Regarding primary care provider resources, half of organizations assigned advanced practice providers independent panels and half had them share panels with a physician, increasing the physician's panel by 50% to 100%. Analyses demonstrated that changes in individual rules for adding patients, removing patients, or estimating primary care provider resources could increase reported panel size from 20% to 100%, without change in actual primary care provider workload. No research was found investigating advantages of different definitions.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Much variation exists in how panels are defined, and this variation can have substantial consequences on reported panel size. Research is needed on how to define primary care panels to best identify active patients, which could contribute to a widely accepted standard approach to panel definition.