Journal of graduate medical education
Association of Family Medicine Milestone Ratings With Early-Career Patient Retention: A US National Insurance Claims Study
By Yamazaki K, Pence L and Hogan SO.
Abstract
Background
US family medicine (FM) residency training emphasizes the development of patient-physician relationships, which are associated with patient satisfaction, improved health outcomes, cost containment, and retention. It is important to examine whether this emphasis translates into observable performance during physicians' early years of independent practice.
Objective
To assess the association between residency Milestone ratings related to patient-physician relationships and patient retention in early clinical practice.
Methods
We analyzed data from 2375 FM residents across 435 programs who completed training in June 2016, linked to 416 249 patients in a commercial health insurance claims dataset. The dataset included patients seen for evaluation and management services and chronic disease visits within 2 years after resident graduation. Subject matter experts identified, a priori, Milestone subcompetencies relevant to patient-physician relationships and retention. A logistic regression model was used to evaluate the association between composite Milestone ratings and patient retention.