The formation and evolution of physician treatment styles
Subtitle: an application to cesarean sections
By: Andrew Epstein, Sean Nicholson.
Contributors: Nicholson, Sean.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 11549; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11549.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Cesarean section -- Florida.; Medical care -- United States -- Decision making.
Description: "Small-area-variation studies have shown that physician treatment styles differ substantially both between and within markets, controlling for patient characteristics.  Using a data set containing the universe of deliveries in Florida over a 12-year period with consistent physician identifiers and a rich set of patient characteristics, we examine why treatment styles differ across obstetricians at a point in time, and why styles change over time.  We find that the variation in c-section rates across physicians within a market is two to three times greater than the variation between markets.  Surprisingly, residency programs explain less than four percent of the variation between physicians in their risk-adjusted c-section rates, even among newly-trained physicians.  Although we find evidence that physicians, especially relatively inexperienced ones, learn from their peers, they do not substantially revise their prior beliefs regarding how patients should be treated due to the local exchange of information.  Our results indicate that physicians are not likely to converge over time to a community standard; thus, within-market variation in treatment styles is likely to persist"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 8/26/2005.
Also available in print.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.