The Effect of Budgets on Doctor Behaviour: Evidence From A Natural Experiment

Mark Dusheiko, Hugh Gravelle, Rowena Jacobs and Peter C Smith

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: In many health care systems primary care physicians act as 'gatekeepers' to secondary care. We investigates the impact of the UK fundholding scheme under which general practices could elect to hold a budget to meet the costs of elective surgery for their patients. We use a differences in differences methodology on a large four year panel of English general practices before and after the abolition of fundholding. Fundholding incentives reduced fundholder elective admission rates by 3.3% and accounted for 57% of the difference between fundholder and nonfundholder elective admissions, with 43% a selection effect due to unobservable differences in practice characteristics. Fundholding had no effect on emergency admissions.

Keywords: Budgets; Health care; Fundholding; Admission rates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-hea and nep-mic
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Working Paper: The Effects of Budgets on Doctors Behaviour: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:yorken:03/04

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