Insurance coverage and agency problems in doctor prescriptions: Evidence from a field experiment in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lu, Fangwen
• 署名单位: Renmin University of China
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.09.001
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 156-167
• 关键词: Health insurance; Agency problems; incentive; Drug prescription; field experiment

摘要

This study examines doctors' prescribing decisions using controlled hospital visits with randomized patient insurance and doctor incentive status. The results suggest that, when they expect to obtain a proportion of patients' drug expenditures, doctors write 43% more expensive prescriptions to insured patients than to uninsured patients. These differences are largely explained by an agency hypothesis that doctors act out of self-interest by prescribing unnecessary or excessively expensive drugs to insured patients, rather than by a considerate doctor hypothesis that doctors take account of the tradeoff between drug efficacy and patients' ability to pay. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.