Does managed care mean more hassle for physicians?

Using the results of a 1995 nationally representative survey of physicians, this paper examines the relationship between exposure to managed care and resources expended by physicians on administrative and insurance matters. O ur measures of managed care exposure are the degree to which a physician ex periences a variety of managed care techniques (i.e., utilization review, c apitation payment, restricted panels, gatekeepers, discounted fees, compens ation links to utilization measures, profiling protocols, and salary paymen t). Physicians report expending, on average, three hours par week on insura nce-related matters and 4.8 hours pel week on administration. Although mana ged care techniques affect administrative and insurance-related burdens, th e direction of that effect varies according to the form that managed care e xposure takes. With the exception of being salaried, none of our variables has an economically significant effect on physicians' administrative/insura nce burdens, even at the outer-most edge of the 95% confidence interval, Ov erall, our findings contradict the widely held notion that managed care dra matically raises the administrative and insurance burden of physicians.