Trends in Physician House Calls to Medicare Beneficiaries

More House Calls by Fewer Physicians

“…On the other hand, home visits can be conducted with little overhead if providers are added to an already full practice or, as it has become the business model for some practices, provide house calls exclusively. This may explain Peterson et al's 2 finding that increasing availability of physicians and some providers being designated as "housecall physicians" by their group practice or in their town. Some physicians provide house calls and nursing home care solely with the motto: "have laptop and cell phone, will travel."…”

“…Such a practice model allows more flexibility, which may be attractive to women with small children. Peterson et al' 2 showed that increasingly more physicians making house calls are women and most recently, in 2006, more than half of providers are female, although the number of house calls made by women physicians is lower than that made by men.…”

Re: Trends in Physician House Calls to Medicare Beneficiaries

“…There seemed to be momentum for strengthening geriatric training in family medicine when, 10 years ago, Family Medicine published 4 articles on the state of geriatrics training. [1][2][3][4] Overall conclusions from these studies were that the Residency Review Committee's downgrading of geriatrics training requirements from "must" to "should" were met with the expected responses of deemphasizing geriatrics education. Barriers to geriatric education, not to mention house calls, include limited geriatric faculty and competing curricular demands.…”

“…To the Editor: What stood out most in this important and informative article 1 was that while the number of home visits by physicians doubled between 2000 and 2006, family medicine (FM) physicians showed the smallest increase compared with other physicians. This is despite the fact that the top 5 billed diagnoses are conditions that are easily managed by FM physicians: hypertension, congestive heart failure, diabetes, COPD, and Alzheimer's disease.…”

Prostate Cancer Decision-Making, Health Services, and the Family Physician Workforce

“…13 After years of decline, house calls to Medicare beneficiaries have increased in recent years, 14 probably related to increases in payment rates, yet there is certainly remaining unmet need.…”