We study the impact of financial incentives on the prescription behavior of physicians based on a recent reform in two large Swiss cities. The reform opened up an additional income channel for physician by allowing them to earn a markup on drugs they prescribe to their patients. We find that the reform leads to an increase in drug costs by about 4%-5% per patient translating to significantly higher physician earnings. The revenue increase can be decomposed into a substitution and rent-seeking component. Our analysis indicates that physicians engage in rent-seeking by substituting larger with smaller packages and by cherry-picking more profitable brands. Although patient health is not sacrificed, the rent-seeking behavior results in unnecessary costs for society.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2022.102711 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
February 2025
Department of Data and Decision Science, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel.
For most researchers, academic publishing serves two goals that are often misaligned-knowledge dissemination and establishing scientific credentials. While both goals can encourage research with significant depth and scope, the latter can also pressure scholars to maximize publication metrics. Commercial publishing companies have capitalized on the centrality of publishing to the scientific enterprises of knowledge dissemination and academic recognition to extract large profits from academia by leveraging unpaid services from reviewers, creating financial barriers to research dissemination, and imposing substantial fees for open access.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent practices by Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers to remunerate research participants.
Alzheimers Dement
January 2025
Bioethics Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Introduction: Recent guidance from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) recommends remuneration for all Alzheimer's disease (AD) research participants. Given AD research recruitment challenges, we assessed the remuneration practices at Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRCs).
Methods: We surveyed 37 ADRCs about remuneration for longitudinal research participants.
Differences in the effectiveness of individual-level smoking cessation interventions by socioeconomic status.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev
January 2025
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Background: People from lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to smoke and less likely to succeed in achieving abstinence, making tobacco smoking a leading driver of health inequalities. Contextual factors affecting subpopulations may moderate the efficacy of individual-level smoking cessation interventions. It is not known whether any intervention performs differently across socioeconomically-diverse populations and contexts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe people's game: evolutionary perspectives on the behavioural neuroscience of football fandom.
Front Psychol
January 2025
Health Service Executive, Portlaoise, Ireland.
Association football (soccer) is the world's most popular sport. Transculturally, fans invest significant resources following their teams, suggesting underlying psychological universals with evolutionary origins. Although evolutionary science can help illuminate the ultimate causes of human behaviour, there have been limited modern evolutionary perspectives on football fandom.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlcohol use and HIV suppression after completion of financial incentives for alcohol abstinence and isoniazid adherence: a randomized controlled trial.
EClinicalMedicine
February 2025
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Background: In a recent randomized trial, six months of financial incentives contingent for recent alcohol abstinence led to lower levels of hazardous drinking, while incentives for recent isoniazid (INH) ingestion had no impact on INH adherence, during TB preventive therapy among persons with HIV (PWH). Whether the short-term incentives influence long-term alcohol use and HIV viral suppression post-intervention is unknown.
Methods: We analyzed twelve-month HIV viral suppression and alcohol use in the Drinkers' Intervention to Prevent Tuberculosis study, a randomized controlled trial among PWH with latent TB and unhealthy alcohol use in south-western Uganda.
Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!