Sending emails to reduce medical costs? The effect of feedback on general practitioners’ claiming of fees

IF 1.6 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2024-01-18 DOI:10.1016/j.socec.2024.102178

Ole Kristian Aars , Geir Godager , Oddvar Kaarboe , Tron Anders Moger

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Audit and feedback is employed as a strategy to guide practices of health care professionals towards certain targets. The outcome of interest can be quality improvements, but also ensuring that health care workers adhere to relevant regulations. We conducted a nationwide field experiment in the Norwegian primary care sector to study the behavioral responses from giving general practitioners feedback (GPs) on their claiming of fees. The email-based feedback intervention targeted GPs who most frequently claimed fees for double consultations and provided them with a reminder of the formal regulations for double consultations. The intervention caused a 3–4 percentage point reduction in the use of the double-consultation fee, reducing the yearly health care spending of the Norwegian government by approximately to €480 000 per year. This substantial and durable behavioral response found in our study sample comprising 15 % of Norwegian GPs, shows that low-cost interventions via email can have significant financial impact.

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发送电子邮件以降低医疗费用？反馈对全科医生索要费用的影响

审计和反馈是一种指导医护专业人员朝着特定目标努力的策略。其结果可能是提高质量，也可能是确保医护人员遵守相关规定。我们在挪威的初级医疗部门进行了一次全国范围的实地实验，以研究全科医生（GPs）在收费方面的反馈所带来的行为反应。以电子邮件为基础的反馈干预措施针对的是最常因双重会诊而索取费用的全科医生，并提醒他们注意双重会诊的正式规定。干预措施使双重会诊费的使用率降低了3-4个百分点，每年为挪威政府减少约48万欧元的医疗开支。在我们的研究样本（包括15%的挪威全科医生）中发现的这一重大而持久的行为反应表明，通过电子邮件进行低成本干预可以产生重大的经济影响。

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来源期刊

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

113

审稿时长

83 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.