Resource scarcity and prioritization decisions in medical care: A lab experiment with heterogeneous patient types
通过实验室实验，研究不同资源稀缺程度如何影响医生在按人头付费下的服务提供和患者健康，发现医生倾向于稳定分配预算比例，导致患者收益随预算减少成比例下降。
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care systems around the world have received additional funding, while at other times, financial support has been lowered to consolidate public spending. Such budget changes likely affect provision behavior in health care. We study how different degrees of resource scarcity affect medical service provision and, in consequence, patients' health. In a controlled lab environment, physicians are paid by capitation and allocate limited resources to several patients. This implies a trade-off between physicians' profits and patients' health benefits. We vary levels of resource scarcity and patient characteristics systematically and observe that most subjects in the role of physician devote a relatively stable share of budget to patient treatment, implying that they provide fewer services when they face more severe budget constraints. Average patient benefits decrease in proportion to physician budgets. The majority of subjects chooses an allocation that leads to equal patient benefits as opposed to allocating resources efficiently.