TY - JOUR T1 - Physician characteristics associated with patient experience scores: implications for adjusting public reporting of individual physician scores JF - BMJ Quality & Safety JO - BMJ Qual Saf SP - 412 LP - 415 DO - 10.1136/bmjqs-2018-008346 VL - 28 IS - 5 AU - Kathryn Elizabeth Engelhardt AU - Richard S Matulewicz AU - John O DeLancey AU - Ryan P Merkow AU - Christopher M Quinn AU - Lindsey Kreutzer AU - Karl Y Bilimoria Y1 - 2019/05/01 UR - http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/28/5/412.abstract N2 - Public reporting of individual physician patient experience scores is becoming widespread on hospital websites and may be included on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Physician Compare website in the future.1 2 Moreover, physician groups can submit patient experience scores for incentive compensation through the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and many groups are including patient experience scores in the allocation of incentive compensation.3 However, there is concern that certain physician characteristics (eg, gender, age, training) may unduly influence these scores and may merit consideration of adjustment when used in these ways. It is important to understand whether uncontrollable factors beyond the patient–physician encounter may influence patients’ scores regarding a physician. It was our hypothesis that physician factors such as age, sex and aspects of his or her medical training significantly influence patient experience scores. Therefore, our objective was to assess the association between physician characteristics and patient experience scores from a diverse group of hospitals and medical groups.Patient experience survey data were acquired for all physicians from a large, diverse, six-hospital (one academic medical centre, one large community hospital, four small community hospitals) health system consisting of 252 outpatient clinic locations for fiscal years (FY) 2013–2017. Only the outpatient survey (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, Clinican and Group (CG-CAHPS)) was examined as the inpatient survey (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, Hospital (HCAHPS)) is not attributable to a single physician. Delivered nationally by a commercial third-party vendor, the survey contains 10 unique questions specifically addressing the … ER -