Can Pay-for-Performance to Primary Care Providers Stimulate Appropriate Use of Antibiotics?

Anders Anell, Jens Dietrichson and Lina Maria Ellegård

No 2015:36, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Antibiotics resistance is a major threat to public health. We examine if pay-for-performance (P4P) to primary care providers stimulates appropriate prescription of antibiotics; specifically, if P4P induces a substitution of narrow-spectrum antibiotics for broad-spectrum antibiotics (which contribute more to resistance) in the treatment of children with respiratory tract infections (RTI). During 2006-2013, a subset of Swedish healthcare authorities introduced antibiotics-related P4P in their reimbursement schemes for care providers. We employ municipality-level data covering all purchases of RTI antibiotics in a difference-in-differences analysis, and find that P4P significantly increased the share of narrow-spectrum antibiotics. There were no signs that physicians tried to game the system by increasing overall antibiotics use.

Keywords: pay-for-performance; antibiotics resistance; primary care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 H73 I11 I18 J33 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2015-12-15, Revised 2016-06-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Forthcoming as Anell, Anders, Jens Dietrichson and Lina Maria Ellegård, 'Can Pay-for-Performance to Primary Care Providers Stimulate Appropriate Use of Antibiotics?' in Health Economics.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Can pay‐for‐performance to primary care providers stimulate appropriate use of antibiotics? (2018)
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