DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04584.v3
title: Community Tracking Study Physician Survey, 2004-2005: [United States]
title: Version 3

description: This is the fourth round of the physician survey component
of the Community Tracking Study (CTS). The first round was conducted
in 1996-1997 (ICPSR 2597), the second round in 1998-1999 (ICPSR 3267),
and the third in 2000-2001 (ICPSR 3820). Sponsored by the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, the CTS is a large-scale investigation of changes
in the American health care system and their effects on people. As in
the previous rounds, physicians were sampled in the 60 CTS sites: 51
metropolitan and 9 nonmetropolitan areas that were randomly selected
to form the core of the CTS and to be representative of the nation as
a whole. However, the fourth round lacks an independent supplemental
national sample of physicians, which augmented the CTS site sample in
the previous rounds. Information collected by the survey includes net
income from the practice of medicine, year of birth, sex, race,
Hispanic origin, year of graduation from medical school, specialty,
board certification status, compensation model, patient mix (e.g.,
race/Hispanic origin of patients and percent with chronic conditions),
career satisfaction, practice type, size, and ownership, percent of
practice revenue from Medicare, Medicaid, or managed care, acceptance
of new Medicaid and Medicare patients and, if applicable, reasons for
not accepting them, use of information technology for care management,
number of patient visits and hours worked in medically related
activities during the last complete week of work, and the number of
hours spent providing charity care in the last month. In addition, the
survey elicited views on a number of issues such as patient-physician
interactions, competition among practices, the influence of financial
incentives on the quantity of services provided to patients, trends in
the amount and quality of nursing support, one's ability to provide
quality care and obtain needed services for patients, and the
importance of various factors that may limit the quality of care.
Part 3, the Site and County Crosswalk Data File, identifies the
counties that constitute each CTS site. Part 4, Physician Survey
Summary File, contains site-level estimates and standard errors for
selected physician characteristics, e.g., the average age of
physicians, the average percentage of patients with a formulary, and
the percentage of physicians who said medical errors in hospitals are
a minor problem.
description: Based on a sampling frame derived from the AMA Masterfile
 (which includes non-AMA members) and the American Osteopathic
 Association membership file, the sample design involved randomly
 selecting both physicians who were interviewed by the third round of
 the CTS Physician Survey and physicians who were not included in
 earlier rounds of the survey. Among the 6,628 physicians who were
 interviewed in round four, 4,428 also responded to round three.
 Only those physicians whose mailing address fell within the boundary
of one of the 60 sites were selected for the survey.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Public-Use Version of the Main Data File
DS2: Restricted-Use Version of the Main Data File
DS3: Site and County Crosswalk Data File
DS4: Physician Survey Summary File
description: Physicians practicing in the contiguous United States who
provided direct patient care for at least 20 hours per week. The
survey excluded federal employees, specialists in fields in which the
primary focus was not direct patient care, graduates of foreign
medical schools who were only temporarily licensed to practice in the
United States, physicians who had not completed their medical training
(residents, interns, and fellows), and physicians who requested of the
American Medical Association (AMA) that their names not be released to
outsiders.
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)Additional information about this study can be found at
the Web site of the Center for
Studying Health System Change.