How medical insurance payment systems affect the physicians' provision behavior in China-based on experimental economics.

Background: It introduced an artefactual field experiment to analyze the influence of incentives from fee-for-service (FFS) and diagnosis-intervention package (DIP) payments on physicians' provision of medical services.

Methods: This study recruited 32 physicians from a national pilot city in China and utilized an artefactual field experiment to examine medical services provided to patients with different health status.

Results: In general, the average quantities of medical services provided by physicians under the FFS payment were higher than the optimal quantities, the difference was statistically significant.