How Much of a General Practitioner's Prescribing is Outside His/her Control?

Objective: To analyse and quantify that portion of one General Practioner's prescribing that is outside his/her control.

Design: Detailed analysis of one General Practioner's General Medical Services prescribing over a three month period during 1996.

Setting: A Group Practice in Sligo, Ireland.

Main Outcome Measures: The number and cost of items outside the General Practitioner's control expressed as a percentage of his total General Medical Services prescribing. The source of these items, and whether they are newly prescribed items or not.

Results: 12.8% numerically and 23.8%, costwise, of items prescribed by one GMS General Practitioner were found to be outside his control. Of these items, psychiatric outpatient consultations and medical in-patient discharges account for 22.8% and 18.4% numerically, respectively, and 25.7% and 22.6% costwise, respectively of the total numbers of items and costs outside his control.

Conclusions: A relatively small proportion of items of a General Practitioners prescribing accounting for a disproportionately large amount of the costs are outside his control.