The Relationship Between Type of Insurance and Time Spent Explaining Diagnosis and Treatment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to look at the effects that patient insurance coverage can have on the time spent between the physician and patient discussing the physiology of the patient's condition as well as its treatment. Given previous studies it was thought that the patients with private insurance would spend a greater amount of time with their physician discussing diagnosis and treatment. The data for this study was collected by using volunteer observers to follow physicians and observe them as they interacted with their patients. The limited amount of data that was acquired indicated partially supported the hypothesis in that the patients with Medicaid spent the least amount of time communicating with their physician. It was also found that reimbursement rates have little impact on time spent on physician-patient communication. It is recommended that the study be repeated in order to gain a much larger sample size and therefore more accurate results.