Place and Population Matter in General Surgeon Location and Practice Structure

Abstract

The geographical structure of medical and surgical care delivery is associated with not just access to, but also potentially quality of, care, as suggested in the study by Tsai et al. 1 The authors used a novel Medicare database to examine the distribution of general surgeons across billing entities and within hospital referral regions (HRRs) and found a trend toward greater concentration of surgeons into larger organizations. 1