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Operating on commission: analyzing how physician financial incentives affect surgery rates
Author(s) -
Shafrin Jason
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1495
Subject(s) - capitation , referral , affect (linguistics) , incentive , compensation (psychology) , commission , actuarial science , business , order (exchange) , test (biology) , medicine , primary care , health care , public economics , operations management , finance , economics , family medicine , psychology , microeconomics , psychoanalysis , biology , economic growth , paleontology , communication , payment
This paper employs a nationally representative, household‐based dataset in order to test how the compensation method of both the specialists and the primary care providers affects surgery rates. After controlling for adverse selection, I find that when specialists are paid through a fee‐for‐system scheme rather than on a capitation basis, surgery rates increase 78%. The impact of primary care physician compensation on surgery rates depends on whether or not referral restrictions are present. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.