Assessing physician workforce using insurance claims data and focus groups compared to benchmarks.

INTRODUCTION Physician demand is challenging to quantify. The authors used three different methodologies to assess physician demand in an area with minimal medical migration. METHODS The researchers calculated population based estimates of physician demand using the average number of physicians per population across the U.S. as a benchmark. This was compared to focus group results and analysis of outpatient medical claims data to assess whether US average physician per population numbers can be used as an estimate of physician demand. RESULTS For primary care specialties, outpatient visit claims data correlated very closely with average US physician per population numbers and with focus group results. However outpatient specialty utilization numbers did not correlate with national average physicians per population calculations. CONCLUSION Average physician per population calculations are an adequate estimate of demand for primary care physician utilization, but cannot be used to estimate specialty care demand in isolated rural areas.