WILL COMMERCIAL MANAGED CARE PATIENTS ACCEPT RESIDENTS AS THEIR PRIMARY-CARE PROVIDERS

We conducted a telephone survey of patients in a university-based medi cal practice to determine if there was a difference across payer class in patients' willingness to have supervised housestaff physicians fun ction as their primary care providers, Overall, commercial managed car e patients were more likely to object to seeing housestaff physicians than were Medicaid or Medicare patients (50% vs 32% or 23%, respective ly). However, prior outpatient care by a resident physician significan tly increased patient willingness to be cared for by a resident. This effect of prior care by a resident was noted in the managed care as we ll as the Medicaid and Medicare populations. Although there may have b een self-selection, our data demonstrate that a significant proportion of managed care patients who have had residents as their primary care providers are amenable to continuing this practice.