Economics of Healthcare Provider Altruism

We propose a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical notions and empirical findings on altruism among physicians and other healthcare providers. While altruism in the behavioral and experimental economics literature is typically defined as a deviation from purely self-interested behavior, the theoretical health economics literature embeds the notion of physician altruism within the doctor–patient relationship. The altruism of physicians is typically defined as the weight in the doctor’s utility function attached to patient’s health benefits, besides the self-interested monetary considerations. We broadly group the empirical evidence into three main categories of evidence: evidence from (i) survey and interview data, (ii) prescriptions records, and (iii) behavioral experiments. Across each of those groups of studies and different methods, the evidence generally supports the theoretical notion that physicians behave ‘altruistically’ in their healthcare decisions. Some studies indicate, however, considerable heterogeneity in physicians’ altruistic preferences.