title: How much of a general practitioner's prescribing is outside his/her control?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyse and quantify that portion of one General Practioner's prescribing that is outside his/her control.
  
  
  METHODS
  Detailed analysis of one General Practioner's General Medical Services prescribing over a three month period during 1996.
  
  
  METHODS
  A Group Practice in Sligo, Ireland.
  
  
  METHODS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health and General Practice Dublin, Trinity College Dublin.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kelly
mesh_terms: D016527:Drug Costs; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000191:economics*; D005194:Family Practice; D006801:Humans; D010821:Physicians, Family