Predicting hospital utilization by the elderly. The importance of patient, physician, and hospital characteristics.

This study developed an index of physician hospitalization practice style distinguishing physicians more prone to hospitalize patients from physicians less prone to hospitalize. The patients of physicians with markedly differing hospitalization styles are shown to be similar in such important characteristics as age, access to physicians, number of reported health problems, amount of time spent ill in bed, etc. In multivariate analysis, only proximity to death is found to have a greater impact than physician practice style on an elderly patient's probability of being hospitalized.