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Physicians in the Denver Metropolitan Area were randomly assigned to study groups and exposed to an intervention designed to test current hypotheses concerning the reasons for underreporting of gonorrhea (lack of saliency in the request, patient interference, violation of the physician-patient relationship, insufficient rewards and excessive administrative cost to the reporter). A periodic telephone contact, initiated by the Health Department and requiring only contact between clerical personnel, more than doubled the number of reported cases. striking for those who had not previously reported, and for doctors who practiced alone. An estimate of 42 per cent was obtained for the proportion of cases reported, substantially higher than that produced by retrospective surveys based on recall. The impact of undernotification on total morbidity vill vary with the preexisting mix of public and private reporting. The telephone reporting system appears to be an inexpensive and effective program tool for determining that impact locally. (Am J Public Health 1980; 70:983-986.) porting of gonorrhea by private physicians who currently account for about 12 per cent of reported cases in the area. Our specific aims were to: determine what, if anything, may constitute adequate motivation for reporting; develop an efficient, inexpensive system for monitoring disease in the private sector; and estimate the effect of underreporting on total morbidity. Materials and MethodsThe initial sampling frame consisted of over 3,000 physicians licensed in the Denver metropolitan area in 1975. Exclusions were made on the basis of specialties unlikely to treat sexually transmitted diseases-such as psychiatry, anesthesiology, and opthamology and/or practice in a public setting or large group practices (whose internal system for disease reporting bypassed the individual physician). 18 Each of the five study groups was assigned a specific behavioral intervention aimed at testing one of the five hypotheses for underreporting. In the categorization of groups which follows, reference is made to studies suggesting that a

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