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Consumer Health Information and the Demand for Physician Visits

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Abstract

The present study empirically investigates the effect of consumer health information on the demand for physician visits. Using a direct information measure based on questions from the Swiss Health Survey, we estimate a Poisson hurdle model for office visits. We find that information has a negative effect on health care utilization, contradicting previous findings in the literature. We consider differences in the used information measures to be the most likely explanation for the different findings. However, our results suggest that increasing consumer health information has the potential to reduce health care expenditures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Christian Schmid, 2015. "Consumer Health Information and the Demand for Physician Visits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(12), pages 1619-1631, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:12:p:1619-1631
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3117
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    Cited by:

    1. Mimra, Wanda & Rasch, Alexander & Waibel, Christian, 2016. "Second opinions in markets for expert services: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PB), pages 106-125.
    2. Eibich, Peter & Goldzahl, Léontine, 2020. "Health information provision, health knowledge and health behaviours: Evidence from breast cancer screening," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    3. Felix C.H. Gottschalk, 2019. "Why prevent when it does not pay? Prevention when health services are credence goods," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 693-709, May.
    4. Hiroaki Suenaga & Maria Rosalía Vicente, 2022. "Online and offline health information seeking and the demand for physician services," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(3), pages 337-356, April.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models

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