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Do Rural Incentives Payments Affect Entries and Exits of General Practitioners?

Author

Listed:
  • Jongsay Yong

    (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne)

  • Anthony Scott

    (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne)

  • Hugh Gravelle

    (University of York, Centre for Health Economics)

  • Peter Mathew Sivey

    (RMIT University - School of Economics, Finance and Marketing; La Trobe University - Faculty of Business, Economics and Law; University of Melbourne - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research)

  • Matthew McGrail

    (Gippsland Medical School, Monash University)

Abstract

Many countries use financial incentive programs to attract physicians to work in rural areas. This paper examines the effectiveness of a policy reform in Australia that made some locations newly eligible for financial incentives and increased incentives for locations already eligible. The analysis uses panel data (2008 to 2014) on all Australian general practitioners (GPs) aggregated to small areas. We use a difference-in-differences approach to examine if the policy change affected GP entry or exit to the 755 newly eligible locations and the 787 always eligible locations relative to 2,249 locations which were never eligible. The policy change increased the entry of newly-qualified GPs to newly eligible locations but had no effect on the entry and exit of other GPs. Our results suggest that location incentives should be targeted at newly qualified GPs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jongsay Yong & Anthony Scott & Hugh Gravelle & Peter Mathew Sivey & Matthew McGrail, 2018. "Do Rural Incentives Payments Affect Entries and Exits of General Practitioners?," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2018n13, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2018n13
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hugh Gravelle & Anthony Scott & Peter Sivey & Jongsay Yong, 2016. "Competition, prices and quality in the market for physician consultations," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 135-169, March.
    2. Julie Riise Kolstad, 2011. "How to make rural jobs more attractive to health workers. Findings from a discrete choice experiment in Tanzania," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 196-211, February.
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    4. Li, Jinhu & Scott, Anthony & McGrail, Matthew & Humphreys, John & Witt, Julia, 2014. "Retaining rural doctors: Doctors' preferences for rural medical workforce incentives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 56-64.
    5. Steven Simoens & Jeremy Hurst, 2006. "The Supply of Physician Services in OECD Countries," OECD Health Working Papers 21, OECD Publishing.
    6. Scott, Anthony & Witt, Julia & Humphreys, John & Joyce, Catherine & Kalb, Guyonne & Jeon, Sung-Hee & McGrail, Matthew, 2013. "Getting doctors into the bush: General Practitioners' preferences for rural location," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 33-44.
    7. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    8. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2011. "Multivariate Matching Methods That Are Monotonic Imbalance Bounding," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(493), pages 345-361.
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    10. Terence Chai Cheng & Anthony Scott & Sung‐Hee Jeon & Guyonne Kalb & John Humphreys & Catherine Joyce, 2012. "What Factors Influence The Earnings Of General Practitioners And Medical Specialists? Evidence From The Medicine In Australia: Balancing Employment And Life Survey," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1300-1317, November.
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    12. Holte, Jon Helgheim & Kjaer, Trine & Abelsen, Birgit & Olsen, Jan Abel, 2015. "The impact of pecuniary and non-pecuniary incentives for attracting young doctors to rural general practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-9.
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    Cited by:

    1. Anell, Anders & Dackehag, Margareta & Dietrichson, Jens & Ellegård, Lina Maria & Kjellsson, Gustav, 2022. "Better Off by Risk Adjustment? Socioeconomic Disparities in Care Utilization in Sweden Following a Payment Reform," Working Papers 2022:15, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 12 Mar 2024.
    2. Swami, Megha & Scott, Anthony, 2021. "Impact of rural workforce incentives on access to GP services in underserved areas: Evidence from a natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    3. Anthony Scott & Peter Sivey, 2022. "Motivation and competition in health care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1695-1712, August.
    4. Chevillard, Guillaume & Mousquès, Julien, 2021. "Medically underserved areas: are primary care teams efficient at attracting and retaining general practitioners?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Australia; GP rural incentives; GP geographic distribution; GP location choice; entries and exits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • L88 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Government Policy

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