IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2488.html

Doctor Decision Making and Patient Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Janet Currie

    (Yale University)

  • W. Bentley MacLeod

    (Yale University)

  • Kate Musen

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

Doctors often treat similar patients differently, which affects health outcomes and medical spending. We assess the recent literature on doctor decision making through the lens of a model that incorporates diagnostic and procedural skills, beliefs, incentives, and differences in patient pools. Decision making is affected by beliefs, training, experience, peer effects, financial incentives, and time constraints. Interventions to improve decision making include providing information, guidelines, and technologies like electronic medical records and algorithmic decision tools. Economists have made progress in understanding doctor decision making, but applications of that knowledge to improving health care are still limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Janet Currie & W. Bentley MacLeod & Kate Musen, 2025. "Doctor Decision Making and Patient Outcomes," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2488, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2026-02/d2488.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jason Abaluck & Leila Agha & Chris Kabrhel & Ali Raja & Arjun Venkatesh, 2016. "The Determinants of Productivity in Medical Testing: Intensity and Allocation of Care," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(12), pages 3730-3764, December.
    2. David C. Chan Jr & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2019. "Selection with Variation in Diagnostic Skill: Evidence from Radiologists," NBER Working Papers 26467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David C Chan & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2022. "Selection with Variation in Diagnostic Skill: Evidence from Radiologists [The Determinants of Productivity in Medical Testing: Intensity and Allocation of Care]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 137(2), pages 729-783.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. David Bardey & Philippe de Donder & Marie-Louise Leroux, 2024. "Incentivizing Physicians' Diagnostic Effort and Test with Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," Working Papers hal-04803393, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Posso & Jorge Tamayo & Arlen Guarin & Estefania Saravia, 2024. "Luck of the Draw: The Causal Effect of Physicians on Birth Outcomes," Borradores de Economia 1269, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    2. Tafti, Elena Ashtari, 2023. "Technology, Skills, and Performance: The Case of Robots in Surgery," CINCH Working Paper Series (since 2020) 78746, Duisburg-Essen University Library, DuEPublico.
    3. Michael Allan Ribers & Hannes Ullrich, 2020. "Machine Predictions and Human Decisions with Variation in Payoffs and Skill," CESifo Working Paper Series 8702, CESifo.
    4. Jason Abaluck & Leila Agha & David C. Chan Jr & Daniel Singer & Diana Zhu, 2020. "Fixing Misallocation with Guidelines: Awareness vs. Adherence," NBER Working Papers 27467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Diego A. Comin & Jonathan S. Skinner & Douglas O. Staiger, 2022. "Overconfidence and Technology Adoption in Health Care," NBER Working Papers 30345, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Elena Ashtari Tafti, 2022. "Technology, skills, and performance: the case of robots in surgery," IFS Working Papers W22/46, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Hannes Ullrich & Michael Allan Ribers, 2023. "Machine predictions and human decisions with variation in payoffs and skill: the case of antibiotic prescribing," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0027, Berlin School of Economics.
    8. Ity Shurtz, 2022. "Heuristic thinking in the workplace: Evidence from primary care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1713-1729, August.
    9. Persson, Petra & Qiu, Xinyao & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2021. "Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnoses: The Case of ADHD," IZA Discussion Papers 14020, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Steven F. Lehrer & Louis‐Pierre Lepage, 2020. "How Do NYPD Officers Respond to Terror Threats?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(347), pages 638-661, July.
    11. Michelle Yin & Garima Siwach & Dajun Lin, 2023. "Vocational Rehabilitation Services and Labor Market Outcomes for Transition‐Age Youth with Disabilities in Maine," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 166-197, January.
    12. Daniel Martin & Philip Marx, 2022. "A Robust Test of Prejudice for Discrimination Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4527-4536, June.
    13. Chunzhou Mu & Shiko Maruyama, 2024. "An Incentive Program with Almost no Incentive: Overlooked Benefits of Pay for Performance," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 100(331), pages 491-512, December.
    14. Pilar Garcia‐Gomez & Pierre Koning & Owen O'Donnell & Carlos Riumalló‐Herl, 2025. "Selective exercise of discretion in disability insurance awards," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(3), pages 816-835, June.
    15. Robert Collinson & John Eric Humphries & Nicholas Mader & Davin Reed & Daniel Tannenbaum & Winnie van Dijk, 2024. "Eviction and Poverty in American Cities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(1), pages 57-120.
    16. Attema, Arthur E. & Galizzi, Matteo M. & Groß, Mona & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Karay, Yassin & L’Haridon, Olivier & Wiesen, Daniel, 2023. "The formation of physician altruism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Leila Agha & Keith Marzilli Ericson & Xiaoxi Zhao, 2023. "The Impact of Organizational Boundaries on Health Care Coordination and Utilization," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 184-214, August.
    18. David J. Deming & Mikko I. Silliman, 2024. "Skills and Human Capital in the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 32908, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Liu, Fang & Rasch, Alexander & Schwarz, Marco A. & Waibel, Christian, 2025. "The role of diagnostic ability in markets for expert services," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    20. Böckerman, Petri & Kortelainen, Mika & Laine, Liisa & Nurminen, Mikko & Saxell, Tanja, 2019. "Digital Waste? Unintended Consequences of Health Information Technology," IZA Discussion Papers 12275, IZA Network @ LISER.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.