Room: Phillips 231
Time: Mon 08:30 AM-10:00 AM

Incentives and Competition in Physician Practices

Chair: Sean Nicholson (Cornell University)

Session Description

Physicians have a strong influence on patients’ medical outcomes, treatment costs, and health insurance premiums. This session examines how the regulatory environment, payment policies, and new cost-saving programs affect the organization of physician practices, treatment decisions, and medical costs. In the first presentation Will White (Cornell) examines what factors are associated with the use of non-compete clauses in primary care practices, and the economic impact of these clauses. In the second presentation Sean Nicholson (Cornell) uses the recent implementation of the average selling price (ASP) Medicare payment policy to examine whether the supply of (high-quality) cancer care to patients is a function of price and, if so, whether the supply curve is inelastic or elastic. In the third presentation Jonathan Ketcham (Arizona State University) analyzes whether recent gainsharing programs in cardiology, in which hospitals establish group incentives for their nonemployee physicians, effectively control spending on highly-priced drugs and devices.

Key Terms None

Session Organizer: Sean Nicholson (Cornell University)

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Presentations

1. Use and Impact of Physician Non-Compete Agreements

   Presenter: William White (Cornell University)

   Discussant: Michael Morrisey (University of Alabama at Birmingham)

2. The Effect of Physician Reimbursement on Chemotherapy Treatment Decisions and Patient Outcomes

   Presenter: Claudio Lucarelli (Cornell University)

   Discussant: Mireille Jacobson (RAND)

3. Standardization under Group Incentives

   Presenter: Pierre Thomas Léger (HEC Montréal)

   Discussant: Benjamin Handel (Northwestern University)