Dive Brief:

• Physicians from residency programs with higher healthcare spending brought more-costly habits with them when they began their practices, according to a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association. 
• The study, by researchers at the Milken Institute SPH at George Washington University, found that physicians whose residencies were in higher-spending regions spent 29% more on average than their peers who had trained in lower-spending areas of the country. 
• Those cost traits persisted even if the new physicians went to another region of the country with lower healthcare spending.

Dive Insight:

Spending money isn't necessarily indulgent if it leads to better outcomes. However, physicians all over the country, regardless of whether they're in rich or poor communities, are going to have to focus more on efficiency as payers clamp down on their wallets. Study authors concluded that interventions during residency training may have the potential to help control future healthcare spending; However, more data is probably needed to see a correlation between spending and quality of care before cuts are considered.