20% of physician respondents are familiar with MACRA: 5 survey takeaways

Only 20 percent of physicians said they were somewhat or very familiar with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, according to a new survey conducted by Merritt Hawkins on behalf of The Physicians Foundation.

The survey polled 17,236 physicians from across the nation on topics like professional morale, practice patterns and careers plans.

Here are five things to know.

1. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were somewhat familiar with MACRA and 5.9 percent said they were very familiar.
   
   
2. About 33.4 percent of respondents said they were very unfamiliar with MACRA, 22.9 percent said they were somewhat familiar and 23.8 percent said they were neither familiar or unfamiliar with the policy.
   
   
3. Sixty-one percent of female physicians said they were very or somewhat unfamiliar with MACRA, compared to 53.6 percent of male physicians.
   
   
4. More physicians 45 years or older were very or somewhat familiar with MACRA (22.4 percent) than physicians 45 years or younger (15.5 percent).
   
   
5. Practice owners exhibited higher familiarity with MACRA (18.5 percent) than employed physicians (15.5 percent).

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