title: From tonsils to scopes: 80 years of variation in the practice of otolaryngology.
abstract: Variation in medicine and surgery is a critical contemporary health policy issue. Recent research demonstrates that variation in Medicare payments to otolaryngologists in a single metropolitan area was attributable to differences in health care resource utilization among physicians and that the hospital with the highest Medicare payments per physician had a higher proportion of office endoscopy-related relative value units than that of other providers, relying less on evaluation and management office visits for revenue. This study is the latest in a line of fascinating case records of variation in otolaryngology and other surgical specialties dating back to the work of J. Alison Glover in 1938.
authors.affiliation: Division of Otolaryngology, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, California, USA gsun@dhs.lacounty.gov.
authors.forename: Gordon H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D018588:Fee-for-Service Plans / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics*; D010036:Otolaryngology / Q000191:economics*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics*
keywords: endoscopy; health policy; otolaryngology; physician’s practice patterns; small-area analysis; tonsillectomy