title: The effect of physician remuneration on regional variation in hospital treatments.
abstract: We study medical practice variations for nine hospital treatments in the Netherlands. Our panel data estimations include various control factors and physician's role to explain hospital treatments in about 3,000 Dutch zip code regions over the period 2006-2009. In particular, we exploit the physicians' remuneration difference-fee-for-service (FFS) versus salary-to explain the effect of financial incentives on medical production. We find that utilization rates are higher in geographical areas where more patients are treated by physicians that are paid FFS. This effect is strong for supply sensitive treatments, such as cataracts and tonsillectomies, while we do not find an effect for non-supply sensitive treatments, such as hip fractures.
authors.affiliation: CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, P.O. Box 80510, 2508 GM, The Hague, The Netherlands.|Erasmus University Rotterdam (iBMG), Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rudy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Douven
authors.affiliation: CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, P.O. Box 80510, 2508 GM, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Remco
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mocking
authors.affiliation: Ecorys Netherlands, P.O. Box 4175, 3006 AD, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. ilaria.mosca@ecorys.com.
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mosca
keywords: Financial incentives; Hospital treatments; Medical practice variations; Remuneration regulations