IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jecfin/v22y1998i2p85-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do physicians employ aides efficiently?: Some new evidence on solo practitioners

Author

Listed:
  • James Thornton

Abstract

This paper investigates the issue of efficient employment of aides in the production of medical care services by self-employed solo practice physicians. Several alternative specifications of the production function for physician services are estimated. The parameter estimates obtained are then used to draw inferences about medical care delivery technology and allocation efficiency. The findings suggest that solo practice physicians overemploy aides and in so doing neither maximize medical practice profit nor minimize the cost of delivering medical care services. Copyright Springer 1998

Suggested Citation

  • James Thornton, 1998. "Do physicians employ aides efficiently?: Some new evidence on solo practitioners," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 22(2), pages 85-96, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:22:y:1998:i:2:p:85-96
    DOI: 10.1007/BF02771479
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF02771479
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF02771479?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keeler, Theodore E & Ying, John S, 1996. "Hospital Costs and Excess Bed Capacity: A Statistical Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(3), pages 470-481, August.
    2. McCarthy, Thomas R., 1985. "The competitive nature of the primary-care physician services market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 93-117, June.
    3. David M. Cutler, 1994. "A Guide to Health Care Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 13-29, Summer.
    4. Frank A. Sloan, 1975. "Physician Supply Behavior in the Short Run," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 28(4), pages 549-569, July.
    5. Douglas M. Brown, 1988. "Do Physicians Underutilize Aides?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(3), pages 342-355.
    6. Zuckerman, Stephen & Hadley, Jack & Iezzoni, Lisa, 1994. "Measuring hospital efficiency with frontier cost functions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 255-280, October.
    7. Feldstein, Martin S, 1970. "The Rising Price of Physicians' Services," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(2), pages 121-133, May.
    8. Hanan G. Jacoby, 1993. "Shadow Wages and Peasant Family Labour Supply: An Econometric Application to the Peruvian Sierra," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 903-921.
    9. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1992. "Medical Care Costs: How Much Welfare Loss?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 3-21, Summer.
    10. Nakamura, Alice & Nakamura, Masao, 1981. "On the Relationships among Several Specification Error Tests Presented by Durbin, Wu, and Hausman," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1583-1588, November.
    11. Richard Cebula, 1998. "Determinants of the inflation rate of the health care CPI in the US," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 47-49.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gregory Dobson & Edieal Pinker & R. Lawrence Van Horn, 2009. "Division of Labor in Medical Office Practices," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(3), pages 525-537, May.
    2. Robert Rosenman & Daniel Friesner, 2004. "Scope and scale inefficiencies in physician practices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(11), pages 1091-1116, November.
    3. Bao Hoang Nguyen & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2021. "Aggregate efficiency of industry and its groups: the case of Queensland public hospitals," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(6), pages 2795-2836, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Thornton, 1998. "The labour supply behaviour of self-employed solo practice physicians," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 85-94.
    2. Marvasti, Akbar, 2014. "An estimation of the demand and supply for physician services using a panel data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 279-286.
    3. Ann Helwege, 1996. "Preventive versus Curative Medicine: A Policy Exercise for the Classroom," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 59-71, January.
    4. Hofmarcher, Maria M., 1999. "Cross-Section Analysis of Health Spending with Special Regard to Trends in Austria," Economics Series 70, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    5. Chunzhou Mu & Shiko Maruyama, 2013. "Salient Gender Difference in the Wage Elasticity of General Practitioners' Labour Supply," Discussion Papers 2013-16, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    6. Dor, Avi & Farley, Dean E., 1996. "Payment source and the cost of hospital care: Evidence from a multiproduct cost function with multiple payers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, February.
    7. Escarce, Jose J. & Pauly, Mark V., 1998. "Physician opportunity costs in physician practice cost functions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 129-151, April.
    8. Nell, Martin & Richter, Andreas & Schiller, Jörg, 2009. "When prices hardly matter: Incomplete insurance contracts and markets for repair goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 343-354, April.
    9. David M. Cutler, 2002. "Equality, Efficiency, and Market Fundamentals: The Dynamics of International Medical-Care Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 881-906, September.
    10. Touhami Abdelkhalek & Fouzia Ejjanoui, 2015. "Tests De Séparabilité dans les Decisioins des Menages Agricoles: Cas du Maroc," Working Papers 955, Economic Research Forum, revised Oct 2015.
    11. Contreras Juan & Patel Elena & Tristao Ignez, 2013. "Production Factors, Productivity Dynamics and Quality Gains as Determinants of Healthcare Spending Growth in U.S. Hospitals," Working Papers 2013-13, Banco de México.
    12. Sean Ennis & Michael Schoenbaum & Theodore Keeler, 2000. "Optimal prices and costs for hospitals with excess bed capacity," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(9), pages 1201-1212.
    13. Qin, Xuezheng & Li, Lixing & Hsieh, Chee-Ruey, 2013. "Too few doctors or too low wages? Labor supply of health care professionals in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 150-164.
    14. Guyonne Kalb & Daniel Kuehnle & Anthony Scott & Terence Chai Cheng & Sung‐Hee Jeon, 2018. "What factors affect physicians' labour supply: Comparing structural discrete choice and reduced‐form approaches," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 101-119, February.
    15. David M. Cutler, 2000. "Walking the Tightrope on Medicare Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 45-56, Spring.
    16. Benjamin Montmartin & Mathieu Escot, 2017. "Local Competition and Physicians’ Pricing Decisions: New Evidence from France," GREDEG Working Papers 2017-31, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    17. Bahram Adrangi & Kambiz Raffiee, 1997. "An econometric analysis of health care reform in the U.S," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 3(2), pages 181-192, May.
    18. Arthur Hau & Lily Jiang, 2005. "Economic Growth and Medicare Funding Systems," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(1), pages 17-27, January.
    19. Nguyen, Xuan Nguyen, 1996. "Physician volume response to price controls," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 189-204, February.
    20. Wong, Herbert S., 1996. "Market structure and the role of consumer information in the physician services industry: An empirical test," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 139-160, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:22:y:1998:i:2:p:85-96. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.