Senior physicians cared for fewer patients in underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as those with Medicaid compared with their junior colleagues within the same practice, a study published in JAMA Network Open found.
“It’s a widely known ‘secret’ that in some practices, the older doctors push patients with lower-paying insurance, and by extension patients of minority races, to the more junior doctors in their clinic. But this is rarely discussed openly,” Michael L. Barnett, MD, MS, an associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard T. H.