Do Patients Continue to See Physicians Who Are Removed From a PPO Network?

In this article from the American Journal of Managed Care, Rosenthal, Li, and Milstein report on their findings from a study investigating how often patients visit their doctor once he/she is dropped from their network. Using claims data, the researchers found that:

"network narrowing reduced the odds of continuing to see an excluded physician (odds ratio, 0.18; P <.001). Patients who continued to see excluded physicians reduced their office visits by a mean of 0.9 visits per year, 0.8 visits more than comparison patients (P <.001). There were no significant changes in emergency department visits or admissions for patients of excluded physicians compared with a matched cohort.

The complete article can be read by clicking here.