The Organization of Medical Practice and Patient Behavior

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Abstract
Urban subscribers to a prepaid medical service plan, patients of a medical group, were studied. Particular attention was paid to their use of the medical services of "outside" solo practitioners. Those who regularly used outside services tended to have been committed to them prior to joining the medical group. Those who have occasionally used outside physicians tended to be well-educated, critically manipulative of services, and uncommitted to either group or solo practice. The majority of the patients were loyal to the medical group: they tended to be poorly educated, passive and uncritical of medical services, and to have had little satisfactory experience with solo practice prior to joining the service plan. Each type of practice recruits and holds its clientele in a different way: these facets of the organization of practice, considered in the light of the way patients habitually seek and evaluate medical care, are related to the use of one or the other practices.

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