Rural Family Physicians Have a Broader Scope of Practice than Urban Family Physicians

Overview of Key Findings Little is known about whether rural family physicians provide a broader scope of practice, defined as the range of clinical and procedural services that they provide, than metropolitan family physicians. Using data from 18,846 family physicians, we examined variations in the provision of 21 clinical services (e.g., inpatient care, home visits, and obstetrics) and 18 procedural services (e.g., prenatal ultrasound, endoscopy, and office skin procedures) across metropolitan, large rural, small rural, and frontier areas. We found that the percentage of family physicians providing each type of clinical and procedural service rises with increasing rurality.