title: How payment systems affect physicians' provision behaviour--an experimental investigation.
abstract: Understanding how physicians respond to incentives from payment schemes is a central concern in health economics research. We introduce a controlled laboratory experiment to analyse the influence of incentives from fee-for-service and capitation payments on physicians' supply of medical services. In our experiment, physicians choose quantities of medical services for patients with different states of health. We find that physicians provide significantly more services under fee-for-service than under capitation. Patients are overserved under fee-for-service and underserved under capitation. However, payment incentives are not the only motivation for physicians' quantity choices, as patients' health benefits are of considerable importance as well. We find that patients in need of a high (low) level of medical services receive larger health benefits under fee-for-service (capitation).
authors.affiliation: BonnEconLab – Laboratory for Experimental Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24-42, D-53113 Bonn, Germany. hschmidt@uni-bonn.de
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hennig-Schmidt
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Selten
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wiesen
mesh_terms: D002204:Capitation Fee / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002755:Choice Behavior; D018588:Fee-for-Service Plans / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006300:Health Services Misuse / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D010816:Physician Incentive Plans / Q000191:economics*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data