Factors Influencing the Clinician Experience in Primary Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Context: The “Quick COVID-19 Primary Care Survey” reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic affected US primary care clinicians. We can use this data to explore the factors that truly influence the experience of clinicians.

Objective: To examine the effect commonly recorded practice characteristics—ownership, practice type, practice size and payment model—had on the experience of clinicians during the pandemic.

Study Design and Analysis: Primary care clinicians completed a survey and the responses were sorted to identify positive, negative, and ambivalent feelings. A negative response was identified by the clinician indicating feelings of personal vulnerability/vulnerability of the practice. Ambivalence was identified by the clinician selecting positive and negative responses. The data was analyzed to identify key themes among the four practice characteristics of interest.

Setting: US Primary care healthcare settings.

Instrument: A clinician survey taking 3-5 minutes to complete and completed anonymously using a web-based platform.

Dataset: Survey results from 562 unique clinicians in March 18-23, 2022.

Population studied: Clinicians practicing in US primary care setting that practiced during the pandemic.

Results: 57%-66% of clinicians reported a positive experience throughout all ownership types. Positive experiences reported by clinician varied between 50%-79% between practice types,11%-65% between payment models and 34%-66% between size of practice. Notably, a positive correlation was found between the number of clinicians and positive experiences reported. Negative experiences varied between 10-31% between practice types and 7%-68% between payment models. Among all negative experiences reported throughout the survey, the amount of personal vulnerability compared to the perceived vulnerability of the practice varied. Among ownership type, practice type, payment model and size of practice, ambivalence was identified in 2%-7%,0%-5%,0%-1%,0%-3% of clinicians, respectively.

Conclusion: The data suggests that no one ownership type creates a significant positive experience compared to others and ambivalence was found among all ownership types. Greater variability in positive and negative experiences along with less ambivalence was seen in the analysis of practice type, payment model and size of a practice.

Relevance Statement: As initiatives are being taken to further improve primary care, commonly classified practice characteristics should be addressed strategically to improve a clinician’s experience.