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Physician Behavior under Prospective Payment Schemes—Evidence from Artefactual Field and Lab Experiments

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  • Simon Reif

    (Department of Economics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Findelgasse 7, 90402 Nürnberg, Germany
    RWI—Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, Hohenzollernstr. 1-3, 45128 Essen, Germany)

  • Lucas Hafner

    (Department of Economics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Findelgasse 7, 90402 Nürnberg, Germany)

  • Michael Seebauer

    (Department of Economics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Findelgasse 7, 90402 Nürnberg, Germany)

Abstract

Recent experimental studies analyze the behavior of physicians towards patients and find that physicians care for their own profit as well as patient benefit. In this paper, we extend the experimental analysis of the physician decision problem by adding a third party which represents the health insurance that finances medical service provision under a prospective payment scheme. Our results show that physicians take into account the payoffs of the third party, which can lead to underprovision of medical care. We conduct a laboratory experiment in neutral as well as in medical framing using students and medical doctors as subjects. Subjects in the medically framed experiments behave weakly and are more patient orientated in contrast to neutral framing. A sample of medical doctors exhibits comparable behavior to students with medical framing.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Reif & Lucas Hafner & Michael Seebauer, 2020. "Physician Behavior under Prospective Payment Schemes—Evidence from Artefactual Field and Lab Experiments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-37, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:15:p:5540-:d:392562
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    2. Nadja Kairies-Schwarz & Claudia Souček, 2020. "Performance Pay in Hospitals: An Experiment on Bonus–Malus Incentives," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-29, November.

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