Abstract
BACKGROUND: Economics and reimbursement have became a daily part of practicing physicians’ lives. Yet, few internal medicine (IM) programs have offered formal curricula during residency about practice management or economics.
OBJECTIVE: To determine perceived, desired, and actual knowledge of Medicare billing and reimbursement among residents compared with community-based General Internists.
DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Cross-sectional needs assessment survey of community and university-based second-year IM residents from 4 geographic regions of the United States.
RESULTS: One hundred and thirty-three second-year IM residents completed the questionnaire. Residents rated their level of knowledge about Medicare as a 2.0 (SD=0.9) on a Likert scale (1=“quo;very low,”quo; 5=“quo;very high”quo;). Residents agreed that Medicare reimbursement should be taught in residency with a score of 4.0 (SD=1.1; 1=“quo;strongly disagree,”quo; 5=“quo;strongly agree”quo; SD=1.1). On the kowledge assessment portion of the questionnaire, residents scored significantly lower than a group of general IM physicians who completed the same questions (percent correct =41.8% vs 59.0%, P<.001). Residents’ score correlated with their self-assessed level of knowledge (P = .007).
CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that second year IM residents feel they have a low level of knowledge regarding outpatient Medicare billing, and have a lower test score than practicing Internists to back up their feelings. The residents also strongly agree that they do not receive enough education about Medicare reimbursement, and believe it should be a requirement in residency training.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. “ACGME general competency requirements,” Available at http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/irc/irc_competencies.pdf. Accessed December 28, 2005.
Accreditation Council for Graduate medical Educations. “Program requirements for residency education in internal medicine.” Available at: http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/downloads/RRC_progReq/140pr703_u704.pdf. Accessed May 23, 2005.
Council on Graduate Medical Education. “Preparing learners for practice in a managed care environment.” September 1997. Available at: http://www.cogme.gov/resource.htm. Accessed 23. 2005.
Hakim A, Kachur E, Santilli V. A comprehensive curriculum in managed care for residents. Acad Med. 2001;76:560.
Iglehart JK. Support for academic medical centers—revisiting the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. N Engl J Med. 1993;341:299–304.
Graduate medical Education Directory 2004–2005. American Medical Association: 2004.
American College of Physicians. “Residency Database Search.” Available at: http://www.acponline.org/residency/index.html. Accessed AUgust 22, 2004.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Available at: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/. Accessed December 28, 2005.
American Medical Association. Medicare Resident & New Physician Guide: Helping Health Care Professionals Navigate Medicare. 7th edn. Baltimore, MD: American Medical Association; 2003.
Ward AW, Murray-Ward M. In: Lindsay D Williams Assessment in the Classroom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth; 1999:74.
American Board of Internal Medicine. Internal Medicine residency programs: percentage of third-year residents by gender and type of medical shool.” Available at: http://www.abim.org/resources/trainim.shtm. Accessed May 23, 2005.
Kravet SJ, Wright SM, Carrese JA. Teaching resource and information management using an innovative case-based conference. J Gen Intern Med. 2001;16:399–403.
Callahan M, Fein O, Stocker M. Educating residents about managed care: a partnership between an academic medical center and a managed care organization. Acad Med. 2000;75:487–93.
Martin GJ, Curry RH, Yarnold PR. The content of internal medicine residency training and its relevance to the practice of medicine: implications for primary care curricula. J Gen Intern Med. 1989;4:304–8.
Tufts Health Care Institute. Health care system overview. Available at: http://www.tmci.org/curriculum/categoryl.htm. Accessed December 28, 2005.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Contributions of authors: K.A., DO: lead author, survey development, data entry, study design, manuscript drafting, statistical analysis, editing. M.B., MD: survey development, data entry, study design, manuscript drafting, editing.
B.W.B., MD: mentoring author, study design, survey design, data analysis, manuscript drafting, editing.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Adiga, K., Buss, M. & Beasley, B.W. Perceived, actual, and desired knowledge regarding medicare billing and reimbursement. J GEN INTERN MED 21, 466–470 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00428.x
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00428.x