LABORATORY TESTS - WHICH PHYSICIANS ORDER MORE

The authors examined OHIP billings for 1986 for 644 primary care physicians who graduated between 1972 and 1983. Women tended to order more laboratory services than men and had a higher mean monthly cost of laboratory service per patient. These differences are correlated with practice features related to physicians, such as proportion of total work done in the office, proportion of patients who are women aged 15 to 49, and proportion of the physician's practice that is psychotherapeutic. The practices of men and women differ in these features.