Reducing Low-Value Care in Healthcare: New Insights into Physician Characteristics and Regional Variation

Efforts to reduce unnecessary healthcare services and costs have highlighted the importance of identifying characteristics of physicians who frequently provide low-value care. Using a large-scale clinic claim database, researchers analyzed 10 types of low-value care services provided in primary care, revealing that approximately 1 in 10 patients received at least one low-value care instance annually. The study found that nearly half of all low-value care services were provided by 10% of the physicians, who were more likely to be older, not board certified, and have higher patient volumes. Regional variation was also observed, with higher rates in western Japan.

Key Takeaways:

1 in 10 patients received at least one low-value care instance annually, with an overall rate of 17.2 episodes per 100 patients per year.
Nearly half of all low-value care services were provided by 10% of the physicians.
Older physicians, physicians who were not board certified, and physicians with higher patient volumes were more likely to provide low-value care.
Regional variation was observed, with higher rates in western Japan.
10 types of low-value care services were analyzed in primary care settings.
Policy interventions targeting a specific type of physician providing large quantities of low-value care may be more effective than targeting all physicians uniformly.

Statistics:

17.2 episodes of low-value care per 100 patients per year.
10% of physicians provided nearly half of all low-value care services.
1 in 10 patients received at least one low-value care instance annually.
10 types of low-value care services analyzed in primary care settings.
2.5 million patients from a large-scale clinic claim database were used in the analysis.

Sources:

NewsRx LLC, "Low-Value Care and Healthcare Systems" (2025).

Note: The provided news article serves as the original source for this write-up.