The physician-patient relationship: the impact of patient-obtained medical information.
We investigate the impact of patient-obtained medical information (POMI) on the physician-patient relationship when patients, as a group, are heterogeneously informed and a physician's interests do not coincide with those of her patients. Introducing additional well-informed patients to the population discontinuously affects the physician's strategy, having no effect unless a sufficient quantity is added. When few patients are well informed, increasing the precision of their information level has no effect on the physician's strategy. Alternately, when a sufficient number of well-informed patients exists, increasing the precision of their information allows all patients to free-ride by receiving more appropriate treatment recommendations.Counterintuitively, we also identify circumstances under which increasing the general level of information may potentially harm patients.
Xie
Bin
B
Management of Technology Program, School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
Dilts
David M
DM
Shor
Mikhael
M
D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008490:Medical Informatics; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011050:Policy Making; D014481:United States