Physician benchmarking: measuring variation in practice behavior in treatment of otitis media.

The study uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to analyze physician practice behavior and develops measures of physician practice efficiency as a basis for improving productivity and reducing costs in otitis media treatment. Other objectives include determining geographic variations in practice patterns for otitis media, and the impact of inefficient practice patterns on the cost of treatment of otitis media. Only 46 (28.8%) of the 160 physicians were classified as efficient. Average total cost of an episode by efficient providers was $357.03 and $492.06 for inefficient providers. By restricting particular inputs and outputs, and directing all physicians to treat otitis media through a balanced primary care model, physicians would be able to provide the same quality care at an average savings of 23.7% per efficient and 4.4% per inefficient provider.