Incentives and Choices
This session presents three papers on incentives and choices in health and healthcare. Sonal Vats and MichaeL Luca present empirical evidence for the impact of patient reviews on consumers’ physician choices. The data suggest that patient reviews are becoming an important source of reputation for physicians. About 25% of New York primary care physicians are now listed on ZocDoc, and 84% of them have at least 5 reviews. Using a regression discontinuity design, they find that half a star improvement in ratings, on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, leads to a 10% increase. In the second paper, Sara Machado studies loss aversion and altruism in repeated blood donation. This study analyzes the short and long term effects of the introduction and removal of a specific monetary incentive for blood donation. In the third paper, Jim Burgess addresses the cost-quality relationship in the context of nursing homes in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, where there are significant patient severity differences but the systems of care delivery to patients vary less than in other health care contexts, such as hospitals