The Financial Cost of Interprofessional Ambulatory Training: What's the Bottom Line?

Abstract

Background: Team-based care is recommended as a building block of high-performing primary care but has not been widely adapted in training sites. Cost may be one barrier to a team-based approach.

Objective: We quantified incremental annual faculty and staff costs as well as potential cost savings associated with an interprofessional (IP) ambulatory training program compared to a traditional residency clinic at the same site.

Methods: Cost calculations for the 2017-2018 academic year were made using US Department of Labor median salaries by profession and divided by the number of residents trained per year. Cost implications of lower no-show rates were calculated by multiplying the difference in no-show rate by the number of scheduled appointments, and then by the weighted average of the reimbursement rate.

Results: A total of 1572 arrived appointments were seen by the 10 residents in the IP program compared with 8689 arrived appointments seen by 57 residents in the traditional clinic. The no-show rate was 11.5% (265 of 2311) in the IP program and 19.2% (2532 of 13 154) in the traditional clinic (P < .001). Total cost to the health system through higher staffing needs was $113,897, or $11,390 per trained resident.

Conclusions: Total costs of the IP model due to higher faculty and staff to resident ratios totaled $11,390 per resident per year. Understanding the faculty and staff costs and potential cost-saving opportunities associated with transformation to an IP model may assist in sustainability.