Healing the poor: The influence of patient socioeconomic status on physician supply responses
Healing the poor: The influence of patient socioeconomic status on physician supply responses
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.02.001
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发表时间：
2019-03-01
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Lakdawalla, Darius N.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, Alice;Lakdawalla, Darius N.
长期文献探讨了利他主义如何影响医生对激励和提供护理的反应方式。我们分析患者的社会经济地位如何调节这些反应。我们从理论上证明，患者的社会经济地位系统地影响医生对报销变化的反应方式，并且我们确定了这些影响发挥作用的渠道。我们使用两项医疗保险报销变更来实证研究这些见解。我们证实，面对报销增加的特定医生在治疗较富有的患者时会提高利用率。我们发现，对于特定医生，平均供应价格弹性在 0.02 到 0.18 之间变化，具体取决于患者的社会经济状况。最后，我们表明，我们研究的医疗保险改革导致总体报销增加，与低收入患者相比，高收入患者的医疗保健利用率提高了 10%。 (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. 保留所有权利。
A longstanding literature explores how altruism affects the way physicians respond to incentives and provide care. We analyze how patient socioeconomic status mediates these responses. We show theoretically that patient socioeconomic status systematically influences the way physicians respond to reimbursement changes, and we identify the channels through which these effects operate. We use two Medicare reimbursement changes to investigate these insights empirically. We confirm that a given physician facing an increase in reimbursement boosts utilization by more when treating richer patients. We show that average supply price elasticities vary from 0.02 to 0.18 for a given physician, depending on the patient's socioeconomic status. Finally, we show that the Medicare reforms we study led to overall reimbursement increases that raised healthcare utilization by 10% more for high-income patients compared to their low-income peers. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.