The unexpected costs of expertise: evidence from highly specialized physicians.

ABSTRACT: High U.S. spending on health care is commonly attributed to its intensity of specialized, high-tech medical care. A growing body of research focuses on physicians whose medical decisions shape treatment intensity, costs, and patient outcomes. Often overlooked in this research is the assignment of physician skills to patient conditions, which may strongly affect health outcomes and productivity. This matching may be especially important in the case of hospital admissions as high-frequency fluctuations in patient flow make it challenging to maintain effective matches between the best-suited physicians and their patients. This paper focuses on hospitals' responses to demand shocks induced by unscheduled high-risk admissions. I show that these demand shocks result in physician-patient mismatch

SUBMITTER: Cheng Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10946670 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature