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Since the mid-1990s, survey data have shown rapid growth of hospitalists in the U.S. Because response rates to these surveys were low and because national information is not available on hospitalist care, researchers used U.S. Medicare claims data to assess the growth of hospitalists from 1995 through 2006. Hospitalists were defined as general internists who derived ≥90% of their Medicare billings from evaluation-and-management (E&M) services of hospitalized patients and who had at least five E&M billings in a given year.
The percentage of internists who were identified as hospitalists increased from 6% in 1995 to 19% in 2006. Inpatient E&M services attributed to hospitalists also increased from 9% to 37% during this same period, and the cha…