Does Physician Dispensing Increase Drug Expenditures? Empirical Evidence from Switzerland
Publisher DOI
Abstract
This paper analyzes whether the opportunity for physicians to dispense drugs increases healthcare expenditures. We study the case of Switzerland, where dispensing physicians face financial incentives to overprescribe and sell more expensive pharmaceuticals. Using comprehensive physician-level data, we exploit the regional variation in the dispensing regime to estimate causal effects. The empirical strategy consists of a doubly-robust estimation that combines inverse probability weighting with regression. Our main finding suggests that dispensing leads to higher drug costs on the order of 34% per patient.
Date Issued
2016-01
Publication Type
Article
Language(s)
en
Additional Credits
Journal
Health economics
Publisher
John Wiley
ISSN
1057-9230
Access(Rights)
restricted