PHYSICIANS OPINIONS ON COMPENSATION FOR TELEPHONE CALLS

Objectives. To describe the attitudes of pediatricians and other physi cians practicing in a fee-for-service environment toward compensation for telephone encounters with patients. Design. Survey by mail. Partic ipants. The 67 pediatric and 634 other private physicians and medical school faculty of Albany County, NY. Results. A total of 479 of all th e physicians (68.3%) and 55 of the pediatricians (82.1%) returned the questionnaire. Of these, 69.9% of the total (95% confidence interval, 65.5% to 74.1%) and 58.2% of the pediatricians (95% confidence interva l, 44.1% to 71.3%) indicated physicians should be compensated for call s with patients, especially for after-hours calls. This opinion was si gnificantly associated with greater concern about liability for calls, more negative sentiments about after-hours calls, and a longer report ed duration of calls. After adjusting for these factors, surgeons and pediatricians were significantly less likely to favor compensation tha n the group as a whole. Pediatricians in favor of compensation suggest ed charging a mean of $9.18 (SD $5.05) for 1 to 5 min, $14.00 (SD $8.8 7) for 6 to 10 min, and $22.27 (SD $12.62) for >10 min. Pediatricians reported documenting in patients' charts a mean of 35.3% (SD 39.9%) of after-hours calls. Conclusions. In a mostly noncapitated environment, the majority of pediatricians and other physicians favor compensation for telephone calls with patients. Some specialists, in particular pe diatricians and surgeons, are, however, less likely to support this. A dditional research into the reasons for these interspecialty differenc es may help to guide policy decisions on the financing of health care.