Prevalence and Factors Associated with Family Physicians Providing E-Visits.

PURPOSE: The use of telemedicine has grown in recent years. As a subset of telemedicine, e-visits typically involve the evaluation and management of a patient by a physician or other clinician through a Web-based or electronic communication system. The national prevalence of e-visits by primary care physicians is unclear as is what factors influence adoption. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of family physicians providing e-visits and associated factors. METHODS: A national, cross-sectional practice demographic questionnaire for 7580 practicing family physicians was utilized. Bivariate statistics were calculated and logistic regression was conducted examining both physician level and practice level factors associated with offering e-visits. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of offering e-visits was 9.3% (n = 702). Compared with private practice physicians, other physicians were more likely to offer e-visits if their primary practice was an academic health center/faculty practice (odds ratio [OR], 1.73; 95% CI, 1.03 to 2.91), managed care/health maintenance organization (HMO) practice (OR, 9.79; 95% CI, 7.05 to 13.58), hospital-/health system-owned medical practice (not including managed care or HMO) (OR, 2.50; 95% CI, 1.83 to 3.41), workplace clinic (OR, 2.28; 95% CI, 1.43 to 3.63), or federal (military, Veterans Administration [VA]/Department of Defense) (OR, 4.49; 95% CI, 2.93 to 6.89). Physicians with no official ownership stake (OR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.28 to 0.68) or other ownership arrangement (OR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.71) had lower odds of offering e-visits compared with sole owners. CONCLUSION: Fewer than 10% of family physicians provided e-visits. Physicians in HMO and VA settings (ie, capitated vs noncapitated models) were more likely to provide e-visits, which suggests that reimbursement may be a major barrier.

Validating the Test Plan Specifications for the American Board of Family Medicine's Certification Examination.

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the degree to which the American Board of Family Medicine's certification examination is representative of family physician practice with regard to frequency of diagnoses encounter and the criticality of the diagnoses. METHODS: Data from 2012 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey was used to assess the frequency of diagnoses encountered by family physicians nationally. These diagnoses were also rated by a panel of content experts for how critical it was to diagnose and treat the condition correctly and then assign the condition to 1 of the 16 content categories used on the American Board of Family Medicine examination. These ratings of frequency and criticality were used to create 7 different new schemas to compute percentages for the content categories. RESULTS: The content category percentages for the 7 different schemas correlated with the 2006 to 2016 test plan percentages from 0.50 to 0.90 with the frequency conditions being more highly correlated and the criticality conditions being less correlated. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports the continued use of the current Family Medicine Certification Examination content specifications as being representative of current family medicine practice; however, small adjustments might be warranted to permit better representation of the criticality of the topics.

Motivation for Participation in the American Board of Family Medicine Certification Program.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Board certification programs have been criticized as not relevant to practice, not improving patient care, and creating additional burdens on already overburdened physicians. Many physicians may feel compelled to participate in board certification programs in order to satisfy employer, hospital, and insurer requirements; however, the influence of forces as motivators for physicians to continue board certification is poorly understood. METHODS: We used data from the 2017 American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) Family Medicine Certification Examination practice demographic registration questionnaire for those seeking to continue their certification, removing physicians who indicated they did not provide direct patient care. We utilized a mixed-methods design. For the quantitative analysis, a proportional odds logistic regression was used to examine the association between predictor variables and increasing levels of external motivation. For the qualitative analysis, we used a deductive approach to examine open-text responses. RESULTS: Of the analytical sample of 7,545 family physicians, approximately one-fifth (21.4%) were motivated to continue their board certification solely by intrinsic factors. Less than one-fifth (17.3%) were motivated only by extrinsic factors, and the majority (61.2%) reported mixed motivations for continuing their board certification. Only 38 respondents (0.5%) included a negative opinion about the certification process in their open-text responses. CONCLUSIONS: Approximately half of family physicians in this sample noted a requirement to continue their certification, suggesting that there has been no significant increase in the requirements from employers, credentialing bodies, or insurers for physicians to continue board certification noted in previously cited work. Furthermore, only 17.5% of our sample reported solely external motivation to continue certification, indicating that real or perceived requirements are not the primary driver for most physicians to maintain certification.

Prevalence and practice for rare diseases in primary care: a national cross-sectional study in the USA.

OBJECTIVES: There are more than 7000 rare diseases in the USA, and they are prevalent in 8% of the population. Due to life-threatening risk and limited therapies, early detection and treatment are critical. The purpose of this study was to explore characteristics of visits for patients with rare diseases seen by primary care physicians (PCPs). DESIGN: The study used a cross sectional study using a national representative dataset, the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for the years 2012-2014. SETTING: Primary care setting. PARTICIPANTS: Visits to PCPs (n=22 306 representing 354 507 772 office visits to PCPs). PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Prevalence of rare diseases in visits of PCPs was the primary outcome. Bivariate analyses and logistic regression analyses were used to compare patients with rare diseases and those without rare diseases and examined characteristics of PCP visits for rare diseases and practice pattern. RESULTS: Among outpatient visits to PCPs, rare diseases account for 1.6% of the visits. The majority of patients with rare diseases were established patients (93.0%) and almost half (49.0%) were enrolled in public insurance programmes. The time spent in visits for rare diseases (22.4 min) and visits for more common diseases (21.3 min) was not significantly different (p=0.09). In an adjusted model controlling for patient characteristics (age, sex, types of insurance, reason for this visit, total number of chronic disease, having a rare disease and established or new patient), patients with rare diseases were 52% more likely to be referred to another provider (OR 1.52, 95% CI, 1.01 to 2.28). CONCLUSIONS: Visits for rare diseases are uncommon in primary care practice. Future research may help to explain whether this low level of management of rare diseases in primary care practice is consistent with a goal of a broad scope of care.

The Relationship Between Board Certification and Disciplinary Actions Against Board-Eligible Family Physicians.

PURPOSE: Lack of specialty board certification has been reported as a significant physician-level predictor of receiving a disciplinary action from a state medical board. This study investigated the association between family physicians receiving a disciplinary action from a state medical board and certification by the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM). METHOD: Three datasets were merged and a series of logistic regressions were conducted examining the relationship between certification status and disciplinary actions when adjusting for covariates. Data were available from 1976 to 2017. Predictor variables were gender, age, medical training degree type, medical school location, and the severity of the action. RESULTS: Of the family physicians in this sample, 95% (114,454/120,443) had never received any disciplinary action. Having ever been certified was associated with a reduced likelihood of ever receiving an action (odds ratio [OR] = 0.35; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.30, 0.40; P < .001), and having held a prior but not current certification at the time of the action was associated with an increase in receiving the most severe type of action (OR = 3.71; 95% CI = 2.24, 6.13; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Disciplinary actions are uncommon events. Family physicians who had ever been ABFM certified were less likely to receive an action. The most severe actions were associated with decreased odds of being board certified at the time of the action. Receiving the most severe action type increased the likelihood of physicians holding a prior but not current certification.

Family Medicine Residents' Debt and Certification Examination Performance.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have found that medical students and internal medicine residents with high educational debt perform less well on examinations. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between educational debt and family medicine residents' performance on initial in-training and board certification examinations. METHODS: Our study was a cross-sectional secondary analysis of American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) data collected from residents (N=5,828) who registered for the Family Medicine Certification Examination (FMCE) in 2014 and 2015, representing 85.8% of graduating family medicine residents in the United States in those years. Multivariable linear and logistic regression modeling was used to examine the relationship between debt level and examination scores, and also to explore the relationship between debt level and passing the initial FMCE. RESULTS: After controlling for demographic variables, residents with high debt ($150,000 to $249,999) and very high debt (more than $250,000) performed significantly worse than those with no debt on the initial in-training examination (score differences of 14.2 [CI 8.6, 19.8] and 15.8 [CI 10.3, 21.4] points, respectively) and FMCE (score differences of 19.3 points [CI 13.4, 25.3] and 30.4 points [CI 24.6, 36.3], respectively). Additionally, those with debt above $250,000 had half the odds of passing their initial FMCE (OR 0.45; CI 0.27-0.75). CONCLUSIONS: High educational debt is associated with lower examination performance among family medicine residents. This may be because residents with more debt have more stress or fewer day-to-day financial resources. However, confounding factors may also contribute to this association.

Board Certified Family Physician Workforce: Progress in Racial and Ethnic Diversity.

Diversification of the physician workforce has been a goal of Association of American Medical Colleges for several years and could improve access to primary care for under-served populations and address health disparities. We found that family physicians' demographics have become more diverse over time, but still do not reflect the national demographic composition. Increased collaboration with undergraduate universities to expand pipeline programs may help increase the diversity of students accepted to medical schools, which in turn should help diversify the family medicine workforce.

Development of the KOOSglobal Platform to Measure Patient-Reported Outcomes After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction.

BACKGROUND: The Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) has demonstrated inferior psychometric properties when compared with the International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) subjective knee form when assessing outcomes after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. The KOOS, Joint Replacement (KOOS, JR) is a validated short-form instrument to assess patient-reported outcomes (PROs) after knee arthroplasty, and the purpose of this study was to determine if augmenting the KOOS, JR with additional KOOS items would allow for the creation of a short-form KOOS-based global knee score for patients undergoing ACL reconstruction, with psychometric properties similar to those of the IKDC. HYPOTHESIS: An augmented version of the KOOS, JR could be created that would demonstrate convergent validity with the IKDC but avoid the ceiling effects and limitations previously noted with several of the KOOS subscales. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 2. METHODS: Based on preoperative and 2-year postoperative responses to the KOOS questionnaires from a sample of 1904 patients undergoing ACL reconstruction, an aggregate score combining the KOOS, JR and the 4 KOOS Quality of Life subscale questions, termed the KOOSglobal, was developed. Psychometric properties of the KOOSglobal were then compared with those of the IKDC subjective score. Convergent validity between the KOOSglobal and IKDC was assessed with a Spearman correlation (ρ). Responsiveness of the 2 instruments was assessed by calculating the pre- to postoperative effect size and relative efficiency. Finally, the presence of a preoperative floor or postoperative ceiling effect was defined with the threshold of 15% of patients reporting either the worst possible (0 for KOOSglobal and IKDC) or the best possible (100 for KOOSglobal and IKDC) scores, respectively. RESULTS: The newly developed KOOSglobal was responsive after ACL reconstruction and demonstrated convergent validity with the IKDC. The KOOSglobal significantly correlated with the IKDC scores (ρ = 0.91, P < .001), explained 83% of the variability in IKDC scores, and was similarly responsive (relative efficiency = 0.63). While there was a higher rate of perfect postoperative scores with the KOOSglobal (213 of 1904, 11%) than with the IKDC (6%), the KOOSglobal was still below the 15% ceiling effect threshold. CONCLUSION: The large ceiling effects limit the ability to use several of the KOOS subscales with the younger, more active ACL population. However, by creating an aggregate score from the KOOS, JR and 4 KOOS Quality of Life subscale questions, the 11-item KOOSglobal offers a responsive PRO tool after ACL reconstruction that converges with the information captured with the IKDC. Also, by offering the ability to calculate multiple scores from a single questionnaire, the KOOSglobal may provide the orthopaedic community a single PRO platform to be used across knee-related subspecialties. Registration: NCT00478894 ( ClinicalTrials.gov identifier).

Frequency and Criticality of Diagnoses in Family Medicine Practices: From the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS).

BACKGROUND: Family medicine is a specialty of breadth, providing comprehensive health care for the individual and the family that integrates the broad scope of clinical, social, and behavioral sciences. As such, the scope of practice (SOP) for family medicine is extensive; however, over time many family physicians narrow their SOP. We sought to provide a nationally representative description of the most common and the most critical diagnoses that family physicians see in their practice. METHODS: Data were extracted from the 2012 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) to select all ICD-9 codes reported by family physicians. A panel of family physicians then reviewed 1893 ICD-9 codes to place each code into an American Board of Family Medicine Family Medicine Certification Examination test plan specifications (TPS) category and provide a rating for an Index of Harm (IoH). RESULTS: An analysis of all 1893 ICD-9 codes seen by family physicians in the 2012 NAMCS found that 198 ICD-9 codes could not be assigned a TPS category, leaving 1695 ICD-9 codes in the dataset. Top 10 lists of ICD-9 codes by TPS category were created for both frequency and IoH. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a nationally representative description of the most common diagnoses that family physicians are seeing in their practice and the criticality of these diagnoses. These results provide insight into the domain of the specialty of family medicine. Medical educators may use these results to better tailor education and training to practice.

Development of the HOOSglobal to Assess Patient-Reported Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Hip Preservation Procedures.

BACKGROUND: The creation of a single patient-reported outcome (PRO) platform validated across hip preservation, osteoarthritis (OA), and total hip arthroplasty (THA) populations may reduce barriers and streamline the routine collection of PROs in clinical practice. As such, the purpose of this study was to determine if augmenting the Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score-Joint Replacement (HOOS, JR) with additional HOOS questions would result in a PRO platform that could be used across a wider spectrum of hip patient populations. HYPOTHESIS: The HOOS, JR would demonstrate a notable ceiling effect, but by augmenting the HOOS, JR with additional HOOS questions, a responsive PRO platform could be created. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 2. METHODS: Using preoperative and postoperative HOOS responses from a sample of 304 patients undergoing periacetabular osteotomy (PAO), additional items were identified to augment the HOOS, JR. The psychometric properties of a newly created PRO tool (HOOSglobal) were then compared with the HOOS, JR and other PRO instruments developed for patients with hip OA and/or undergoing THA. RESULTS: By augmenting the HOOS, JR with 2 additional questions, the HOOSglobal was more responsive than all other included PRO tools and had significantly fewer maximum postoperative scores than the HOOS, JR ( P < .0001), HOOS-Physical Function Short form ( P < .0001), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index ( P = .02), University of California, Los Angeles activity scale ( P = .0002), and modified Harris Hip Score ( P = .04). The postoperative HOOSglobal score threshold associated with patients achieving the patient acceptable symptom state (PASS) was 62.5. CONCLUSION: The HOOSglobal is a valid and responsive PRO tool after PAO and may potentially provide the orthopaedic community with a PRO platform to be used across hip-related subspecialties. For patients undergoing PAO, a postoperative HOOSglobal score ≥62.5 was associated with patients achieving the PASS.

The Single Graduate Medical Education (GME) Accreditation System Will Change the Future of the Family Medicine Workforce.

BACKGROUND: Due to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)/American Osteopathic Association (AOA) single-accreditation model, the specialty of family medicine may see as many as 150 programs and 500 trainees in AOA-accredited programs seek ACGME accreditation. This analysis serves to better understand the composition of physicians completing family medicine residency training and their subsequent certification by the American Board of Family Medicine. METHODS: We identified residents who completed an ACGME-accredited or dual-accredited family medicine residency program between 2006 and 2016 and cross-tabulated the data by graduation year and by educational background (US Medical Graduate-MD [USMG-MD], USMG-DO, or International Medical Graduate-MD [IMG-MD]) to examine the cohort composition trend over time. RESULTS: The number and proportion of osteopaths completing family medicine residency training continues to rise concurrent with a decline in the number and proportion of IMGs. Take Rates for USMG-MDs and USMG-IMGs seem stable; however, the Take Rate for the USMG-DOs has generally been rising since 2011. CONCLUSIONS: There is a clear change in the composition of graduating trainees entering the family medicine workforce. As the transition to a single accreditation system for graduate medical education progresses, further shifts in the composition of this workforce should be expected.

Performance of Graduating Residents on the American Board of Family Medicine Certification Examination 2009-2016.

In response to growing concern about the declining performance on the American Board of Family Medicine Certification Examination, several strategies were employed to assist program directors with preparing their residents to take the examination. The effect of these efforts seems to have resulted in significant improvement in performance.

Scope of Practice Among Recent Family Medicine Residency Graduates.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The scope of practice among primary care providers varies, and studies have shown that family physicians' scope may be shrinking. We studied the scope of practice among graduates of residencies associated with Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice (P4) and how length of training and individualized education innovations may influence scope. METHODS: We surveyed graduates 18 months after residency between 2008 and 2014. The survey measured self-reported practice characteristics, scope of practice and career satisfaction. We assessed scope using individual practice components (25 clinical activities, 30 procedures) and a scaled score (P4-SOP) that measured breadth of practice scope. We conducted subgroup analyses according to exposure to innovations over the project period and exposure to specific innovations. RESULTS: No significant differences were found in mean P4-SOP scores between the Pre and Full P4 groups. Compared to national data, P4 graduates reported higher rates for vaginal deliveries (19.3% vs 9.2%), adult inpatient care (48.5% vs 33.7%) and nursing home care (25.4 vs 11.7%) in practice. Graduates exposed to innovations that lengthened training, compared to standard training length, were more likely to include adult hospital care (58.2% vs 38.5%, P=0.002), adult ICU care (30.6% vs 19.2%, P=0.047) and newborn resuscitation (25.6% vs 14%, P=0.028) in their practice and performed 19/30 procedures at higher rates. Graduates of programs with individualized training innovations reported no significant differences in scope compared to graduates without this innovation. CONCLUSIONS: Graduates of residencies engaged in significant educational redesign report a broad scope of practice. Innovations around the length of training may broaden scope and individualized education appears not to constrict scope.

Examining the Functioning and Reliability of the Family Medicine Milestones.

BACKGROUND: The Family Medicine (FM) Milestones are a framework designed to assess development of residents in key dimensions of physician competency. Residency programs use the milestones in semiannual reviews of resident performance from entry toward graduation. OBJECTIVE: To examine the functioning and reliability of the FM Milestones and to determine whether they measure the amount of a latent trait (eg, knowledge or ability) possessed by a resident or simply indicate where a resident falls along the training sequence. METHODS: This study utilized the Rasch Partial Credit model to examine academic year 2014-2015 ratings for 10 563 residents from 476 residency programs (postgraduate year [PGY] 1 = 3639; PGY-2 = 3562; PGY-3 = 3351; PGY-4 = 11). RESULTS: Reliability was exceptionally high at 0.99. Mean scores were 3.2 (SD = 1.3) for PGY-1; 5.0 (SD = 1.3) for PGY-2; 6.7 (SD = 1.2) for PGY-3; and 7.4 (SD = 1.0) for PGY-4. Keyform analysis showed a rating on 1 item was likely to be similar for all other items. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that FM Milestones seem to largely function as intended. Lack of spread in item difficulty and lack of variation in category probabilities show that FM Milestones do not measure the amount of a latent trait possessed by a resident, but rather describe where a resident falls along the training sequence. High reliability indicates residents are being rated in a stable manner as they progress through residency, and individual residents deviating from this rating structure warrant consideration by program leaders.

Impact of One Versus Two Content-Specific Modules on American Board of Family Medicine Certification Examination Scores.

BACKGROUND: We consider the question of whether requiring diplomates to select only 1 content-specific module, rather than 2, would increase, decrease, or produce no change in scores among the examinee population. METHODS: Examinees' scores were computed under 3 different conditions: the examination core plus (1) both modules, (2) the module on which they scored higher, and (3) the module on which they scored lower. RESULTS: Although the differences in scores across the 3 conditions were relatively small, asking examinees to select only a single module would likely benefit more examinees than it would harm by a 4:1 ratio, assuming that the diplomates selected the module on which they scored higher. Only 114 of the 29,088 examinees (0.4%) would have changed from a pass to a fail, whereas 467 (1.6%) would have changed from fail to pass. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that having examinees select 1 module rather than 2 will likely produce a slight score increase for examinees. Simultaneously, it would improve the standardization of the examination across examinees.

Applying the Many-Facet Rasch Measurement Model to Explore Reviewer Ratings of Conference Proposals.

For academic conferences, when proposals are submit they are often judged using a rating scale on identified criterion by reviewers who have a shared interest and expertise in the area under consideration. Given the multiple and varied reviewers, an analysis of psychometric properties like rater severity and consistency are important. However, many of the problems that plague the conference proposal selection process are the same issues that plague survey research: rater bias/severity, misuse of rating scale, and the use of raw scores as measures. We propose the use of the many-facet Rasch measurement model (MFRM) to combat these shortcomings and improve the quality of the conference proposal selection process. A set of American Educational Research Association (AERA) Special Interest Group (SIG) proposals is used as an example. The results identify proposals that were accepted based on calculating the mean of summed raw scores, but when MFRM is applied to adjust for judge severity the rank order of the proposals is substantially altered.

The Predictive Validity of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners' COMLEX-USA Examinations With Regard to Outcomes on American Board of Family Medicine Examinations.

PURPOSE: To examine the predictive validity of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners' Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination of the United States of America (COMLEX-USA) series with regard to the American Board of Family Medicine's (ABFM's) In-Training Examination (ITE) and Maintenance of Certification for Family Physicians (MC-FP) Examination. METHOD: A repeated-measures design was employed, using test scores across seven levels of training for 1,023 DOs who took the MC-FP for the first time between April 2012 and November 2014 and for whom the ABFM had ITE scores for each of their residency years. Pearson and disattenuated correlations were calculated; Fisher r to z transformation was performed; and sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values for the COMLEX-USA Level 2-Cognitive Evaluation (CE) with regard to the MC-FP were computed. RESULTS: The Pearson and disattenuated correlations ranged from 0.55 to 0.69 and from 0.61 to 0.80, respectively. For MC-FP scores, only the correlation increase from the COMLEX-USA Level 2-CE to Level 3 was statistically significant (for Pearson correlations: z = 2.41, P = .008; for disattenuated correlations: z = 3.16, P < .001). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of the COMLEX-USA Level 2-CE with the MC-FP were 0.90, 0.39, 0.96, and 0.19, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence was found that the COMLEX-USA can assist family medicine residency program directors in predicting later resident performance on the ABFM's ITE and MC-FP, which is becoming increasingly important as graduate medical education accreditation moves toward a single aligned model.