Should physicians' dual practice be limited? An incentive approach

Paula González

Health Economics, 2004, vol. 13, issue 6, 505-524

Abstract: We develop a principal‐agent model to analyze how the behavior of a physician in the public sector is affected by his activities in the private sector. We show that the physician will have incentives to over‐provide medical services when he uses his public activity as a way of increasing his prestige as a private doctor. The health authority only benefits from the physician's dual practice when it is interested in ensuring a very accurate treatment for the patient. Our analysis provides a theoretical framework in which some actual policies implemented to regulate physicians' dual practice can be addressed. In particular, we focus on the possibility that the health authority offers exclusive contracts to physicians and on the implications of limiting physicians' private earnings. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.890

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:6:p:505-524

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().