An Exploration of Medical Professionals’ Perceptions of Managed Care and Policy Concepts: A Magnitude Estimation Approach

Abstract

The authors begin by establishing the information content of measurement as the critical element in seeking research findings. They go on to indicate that traditional social science scaling has not provided all the information necessary to accomplish the task of measurement. They review some of the relevant literature in the field where the most common measure, Likert type scaling, has been used. They contrast that literature with research based on magnitude estimation procedures. They then apply magnitude estimation procedures to study beliefs among physicians and health care providers regarding managed care. This procedure is a novel application of magnitude estimation having never been applied in managed care research. The magnitude estimation based data are determined to yield ratio scales with true zero points, thereby, representing the highest level of measurement information. The differences between the pairs of managed care concepts using these ratio scales show that the health care concepts have greater variation in distances between them than might have heretofore been recognized because of the limitations of the scales previously applied. Consequently, the data reported have the potential to yield greater information concerning the current state of physicians’ and providers’ beliefs regarding managed care. Policy implications are discussed.