Users and Suppliers of Physician Services: A Tale of Two Populations

Frank Denton, Amiram Gafni and Byron Spencer

Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population Research Reports from McMaster University

Abstract: Physician shortages and their implications for required increases in the physician population are matters of considerable interest in many health care systems, in light especially of the widespread phenomenon of population ageing. To determine the extent to which shortages exist one needs to study the population of users of physician services as well as that of the physicians themselves. In this paper we study both, using the province of Ontario, Canada, as an example. The user population is projected and the implications for requirements calculated, conditional on given utilization rates. On the supplier side, the age and other characteristics of the (active) physician population are examined and patterns of withdrawal investigated. The necessary future growth of supply is calculated, assuming alternative levels of present shortages. The effects of population change on requirements are found to be smaller in the future than in the decade 1981- 1991, in the aggregate, not far from the effects in 1991-2001, but highly variable among different categories of physicians.

Keywords: physician shortages; physician requirements; population aging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2005-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-for and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Working Paper: Users and Suppliers of Physician Services: A Tale of Two Populations (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mcm:qseprr:399

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