Gatekeeping versus direct‐access when patient information matters
构建了一个委托代理模型，分析在考虑患者自我健康信息和患者对全科医生施加转诊压力的情况下，守门人制度与非守门人制度孰优孰劣。研究发现，当全科医生激励重要时，非守门人制度仅在患者转诊压力足够高且患者自我健康信息质量既非极差也非极优时更优。
We develop a principal-agent model in which the health authority acts as a principal for both a patient and a general practitioner (GP). The goal of the paper is to weigh the merits of gatekeeping versus non-gatekeeping approaches to health care when patient self-health information and patient pressure on GPs to provide referrals for specialized care are considered. We find that, when GPs incentives matter, a non-gatekeeping system is preferable only when (i) patient pressure to refer is sufficiently high and (ii) the quality of the patient's self-health information is neither highly inaccurate (in which case the patient's self-referral will be very inefficient) nor highly accurate (in which case the GP's agency problem will be very costly).