The physician-patient relationship revisited: the patient's view.
The importance of the physician-patient relationship for the health care market is beyond controversy. Recent work emphasizes a two-sided asymmetric information relationship between physician and patient. In contrast to most work looking only at the physician's perspective, our paper concentrates on the patient's view. Estimation results support the hypotheses that physician consultation and health relevant behavior are not stochastically independent. In the recursive bivariate probit model, patient's health relevant behavior has a significant influence on the probability of a physician visit. This means that health care demand and not only the contact decision is determined by both, patient and physician.
Schneider
Udo
U
Department of Law and Economics, Institute of Public Finance, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany. Udo.Schneider@uni-bayreuth.de
Ulrich
Volker
V
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003657:Decision Making; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D036262:Empirical Research; D005858:Germany; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D017059:Models, Econometric; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011320:Primary Health Care