Patient characteristics
| Entry-point provider | ||||||||||
| Conservative therapist | Physician | |||||||||
| Total | Chiropractor | Physical therapist | Acupuncture | Primary care | Orthopaedic surgeon | Emergency medicine | MD other | Rehab | Neurosurgeon | |
| Full sample—N (%) | 216 504 (100) | 50 014 (23.1) | 3499 (1.6) | 1839 (0.8) | 114 782 (53.0) | 9335 (4.3) | 8746 (4.0) | 4422 (2.0) | 3246 (1.5) | 578 (0.3) |
| Age, year—mean (SD) | 48.1 (15.9) | 45.7 (14.9) | 47.0 (15.7) | 42.4 (10.6) | 47.7 (15.4) | 50.1 (16.4) | 50.1 (18.3) | 51.3 (15.3) | 46.9 (15.0) | 52.2 (14.8) |
| Sex/gender—N (%) | ||||||||||
| Female | 108 347 (50.1) | 22 808 (45.6) | 1995 (57.1) | 972 (52.9) | 58 182 (50.7) | 4648 (49.8) | 4560 (52.2) | 2282 (51.6) | 1554 (47.9) | 245 (42.4) |
| Male | 107 660 (49.8) | 27 193 (54.4) | >1493 (>42.6)* | >856 (>46.5)* | 56 517 (49.2) | 4674 (50.1) | >4175 (>47.7)* | 2140 (48.4) | >1681 (>51.8)* | 333 (57.6) |
| Race/ethnicity—N (%) | ||||||||||
| Black | 18 907 (8.7) | 2190 (4.4) | 191 (5.5) | 45 (2.4) | 11 755 (10.2) | 802 (8.6) | 1192 (13.6) | 494 (11.2) | 208 (6.4) | 50 (8.7) |
| Hispanic | 20 936 (9.7) | 3766 (7.5) | 263 (7.5) | 224 (12.2) | 12 212 (10.6) | 752 (8.1) | 860 (9.8) | 541 (12.2) | 293 (9.0) | 38 (6.6) |
| Asian | 9344 (4.3) | 1636 (3.3) | 224 (6.4) | 747 (40.6) | 4885 (4.3) | 354 (3.8) | 270 (3.1) | 194 (4.4) | 218 (6.7) | 15 (2.6) |
| White | 159 503 (73.7) | 40 709 (81.4) | 2666 (76.2) | 732 (39.8) | 81 971 (71.4) | 7046 (75.5) | 6115 (69.9) | 3013 (68.1) | 2394 (73.8) | 449 (77.7) |
| Unknown (missing) | 7814 (3.6) | 1713 (3.4) | 155 (4.4) | 91 (4.9) | 3959 (3.4) | 381 (4.1) | 309 (3.5) | 180 (4.1) | 133 (4.1) | 26 (4.5) |
| Insurance—N (%) | ||||||||||
| Commercial | 183 117 (84.7) | 44 520 (89.0) | 3048 (87.1) | 1827 (99.3) | 99 842 (87.0) | 7696 (82.5) | 6236 (71.3) | 3601 (81.4) | 2891 (89.1) | 472 (81.7) |
| Medicare Advantage | 32 937 (15.2) | 5476 (11.0) | >440 (>12.6)* | 12 (0.7) | 14 900 (13.0) | >1628 (>17.4)* | >2499 (>28.6)* | >810 (>18.3)* | >344 (>10.6)* | >95 (>16.4)* |
Age, sex/gender, race/ethnicity and insurance are all statistically significant at p<0.0001.
*Cell suppressed due to small N’s with unknown sex/gender or insurance in the corresponding column. Two additional initial type of providers—other non-MD (eg, physician assistants, advance practice nurses) and radiologist—were included in the analyses but not reported in this table. Outcomes with a sample size <11 are not shown due to small sample size. There were a small number of individuals with unknown sex/gender and insurance type, and if we provided exact n’s, readers may be able to infer the unknown n’s which would be problematic since we cannot disclose n<11 for purposes of confidentiality of the data. For example, in table 1 under male PT, >1493 means that there was an unknown sex/gender row or column with n<11. Therefore, the number of male PT first individuals is between 1493 and 1504.
PT, physical therapy.