An Analysis of Service Volume between Solo and Group Practice Western Clinics in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Fang Hsiu Chuang, 莊芳琇
• Other Authors: Y. P. Wen
• Format: Others
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/68698112495651534882

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 醫務管理學系 === 98 === According to recent research, there is a rising trend of group practice. However, there are different opinions regarding the relationship between practice type and practice volume. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to compare service volume between solo and group practice western clinicians thus to share some light on the relationship between practice and service volume. Data of this study were collected from 1998 to 2007 from the National Health Insurance Research Database. The clinic sample for our research were 8,577 and 8,950 western medicine providers who had declared claims from the National Health Insurance in 1998 and 2007, respectively. The physician sample included 9,944 office-based physicians in 1998, and 11,927 physicians in 2007. The results show that, the ratio of group practice has increased slowly over the last decade. The study utilized a conception of Full-Time Equivalent(FTE) to estimate the number of physician working in each clinic. After adjusting FTE, the average clinic claims increased. That is to say, the clinic claims were underestimated. Results indicate that physicians in solo practice had higher service volume than that of physicians in group practice. However, physicians in small group practice enjoyed higher average claims than who were in the solo practice. On the other hand, those in large group practice had less average claims than that of solo practice physicians. Therefore, we speculated that at least some physicians’ leisure time had increase of due to joining group practice. Besides the above findings, the research finds that many factors would affect the calculation of service volume between solo and group practice, including policy, organizational structure, physicians’ number of work place, etc. Hence, future research needs to pay attention to those factors.