The Evolution of Physician Practice Styles: Evidence from Cardiologist Migration / David Molitor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Molitor, David.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22478.

NBER working paper series no. w22478

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Evolution of Physician Practice Styles

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Physician treatment choices for observably similar patients vary dramatically across regions. This paper exploits cardiologist migration to disentangle the role of physician- specific factors such as preferences and learned behavior versus environment-level factors such as hospital capacity and productivity spillovers on physician behavior. Physicians starting in the same region and subsequently moving to dissimilar regions practice similarly before the move. After the move, physician behavior in the first year changes by 0.6-0.8 percentage points for each percentage point change in practice environment, with no further changes over time. This suggests environment factors explain between 60-80 percent of regional disparities in physician behavior.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2016.