IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/hectdg/23-06.html

Time Constraints and the Quality of Physician Care

Author

Listed:
  • Alquezar-Yus, M.;

Abstract

This paper studies how time constraints affect the quality of physician care. Insufficient examination time may hamper physicians’ care and diagnostic provision, leaving physicians more inclined to over-prescribe medication. I test this prediction using high frequency data from a Spanish outpatient department and leverage on-the-day cancellations as random time shocks. I find that longer visits lead to better care, measured by providing more detailed diagnoses, higher testing intensity, and lower drug prescriptions. These effects are driven by junior physicians, who use this extra time to compensate for their more overloaded shifts.

Suggested Citation

  • Alquezar-Yus, M.;, 2023. "Time Constraints and the Quality of Physician Care," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 23/06, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:hectdg:23/06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/2023/2306.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Powell-Jackson, Timothy & Mazumdar, Sumit & Mills, Anne, 2015. "Financial incentives in health: New evidence from India's Janani Suraksha Yojana," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 154-169.
    2. Tom Fangyun Tan & Serguei Netessine, 2014. "When Does the Devil Make Work? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Workload on Worker Productivity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1574-1593, June.
    3. Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman, 2017. "Is the Time Allocated to Review Patent Applications Inducing Examiners to Grant Invalid Patents? Evidence from Microlevel Application Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 550-563, July.
    4. David Silver, 2021. "Haste or Waste? Peer Pressure and Productivity in the Emergency Department," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1385-1417.
    5. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    6. Ity Shurtz & Alon Eizenberg & Adi Alkalay & Amnon Lahad, 2022. "Physician workload and treatment choice: the case of primary care," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(4), pages 763-791, December.
    7. Freedman, Seth & Golberstein, Ezra & Huang, Tsan-Yao & Satin, David J. & Smith, Laura Barrie, 2021. "Docs with their eyes on the clock? The effect of time pressures on primary care productivity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca, 2016. "Who performs better under time pressure? Results from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 37-53.
    9. Atul Gupta, 2021. "Impacts of Performance Pay for Hospitals: The Readmissions Reduction Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(4), pages 1241-1283, April.
    10. Suri, Rajneesh & Monroe, Kent B, 2003. "The Effects of Time Constraints on Consumers' Judgments of Prices and Products," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(1), pages 92-104, June.
    11. Cao, Qian & Li, Jianbiao & Niu, Xiaofei, 2022. "Tempus fugit: The impact of time constraint on investor behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 67-81.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Luv Sharma & Aravind Chandrasekaran & Elliot Bendoly, 2020. "Does the Office of Patient Experience Matter in Improving Delivery of Care?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 833-855, April.
    2. Diya Abraham & Ondrej Krcal & Jonathan Stabler, 2026. "Managing Excess Demand for Primary Care: Evidence from Online Experiments," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2026-04, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    3. Hessam Bavafa & Lorin M. Hitt & Christian Terwiesch, 2018. "The Impact of E-Visits on Visit Frequencies and Patient Health: Evidence from Primary Care," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5461-5480, December.
    4. Atul Gupta & Ambar La Forgia & Adam Sacarny, 2026. "Turbocharging Profits? Contract Gaming and Revenue Allocation in Healthcare," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 322-361, July.
    5. Facchini, Gabriel, 2022. "Low staffing in the maternity ward: Keep calm and call the surgeon," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 370-394.
    6. Hanifa Pilvar & Toby Watt, 2025. "The effect of workload on primary care doctors on referral rates and prescription patterns: evidence from English NHS," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 26(5), pages 817-837, July.
    7. Ity Shurtz & Alon Eizenberg & Adi Alkalay & Amnon Lahad, 2022. "Physician workload and treatment choice: the case of primary care," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(4), pages 763-791, December.
    8. Elena Andreyeva & Guy David & Hummy Song, 2018. "The Effects of Home Health Visit Length on Hospital Readmission," NBER Working Papers 24566, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Brian Goff & Dennis Wilson & David Zimmer, 2025. "Performing in high-pressure situations: the case of tennis players up a break and serving for the set," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(39), pages 6138-6147, August.
    10. Gerald J. Pruckner & Thomas Schober, 2025. "Evaluating hospital performance," Economics working papers 2025-03, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    11. Hummy Song & Elena Andreyeva & Guy David, 2022. "Time Is the Wisest Counselor of All: The Value of Provider–Patient Engagement Length in Home Healthcare," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 420-441, January.
    12. Arturas Juodis, 2013. "Cointegration Testing in Panel VAR Models Under Partial Identification and Spatial Dependence," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 13-08, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    13. William Arbour, 2021. "Can Recidivism be Prevented from Behind Bars? Evidence from a Behavioral Program," Working Papers tecipa-683, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    14. Chen, Jialiang & Lade, Gabriel, 2026. "Impact of California's LCFS on Dairy Herd Expansion," 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri 404445, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. MacDonald, Peter, 2013. "Labour substitution and the scope for military outsourcing," MPRA Paper 46688, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. repec:osf:socarx:qzmf8_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Jin, Hyun Joung & Kim, Jang-Chul & Su, Qing, 2025. "Economic freedom and market resilience: Safeguarding liquidity in times of crisis," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    18. Kelly, Elaine & Propper, Carol & Zaranko, Ben, 2026. "Nursing shortages and patient outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    19. Garcia-Fuentes, Pablo A. & Kennedy, P. Lynn & Ferreira, Gustavo F.C., 2025. "Growth effects of remittances in developing countries: A growth accounting approach," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    20. Jin, Laiqun & Dai, Jiaying & Jiang, Weijie & Cao, Kairui, 2023. "Digital finance and misallocation of resources among firms: Evidence from China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    21. Fraser Summerfield & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Influenza Pandemics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Recent Economic History," Working Papers 210002, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

    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:yor:hectdg:23/06. 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: Jane Rawlings (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.