Freezing in Australia?
Funding freeze, competition and physicians' behaviours
Presented by Dr Susan Méndez (University of Melbourne) with Tor Iversen, Kushneel Prakash and Anthony Scott
How does government funding affect physician behaviour? To answer this question, we consider how general practitioners (GPs) adjust their fees, quantity and quality of care to a four-year freeze in the indexation of subsidies that the Australian government pays for medical services provided by GPs.
GP markets in Australia are competitive, with no patient enrolment, no control over GP practice locations, and prices being freely set by GPs. Using a quasi-experimental continuous difference in difference design, we test if the fee freeze was more likely to influence GPs facing more competition before the fee freeze was introduced. We use eleven waves (2008 to 2018) of detailed individual doctor-level panel data from a representative sample of over 5,000 GPs from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel survey. Data on fees and bulk billing are self-reported. We also link MABEL survey data to administrative data from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) for a subsample of 1,000 GPs that includes high-frequency data on prices charged, volume, and bulk-billing for every service billed between 2012 and 2019.
Preliminary results from the survey data show no difference in GPs' earnings in more competitive areas, but some evidence of lower bulk-billing rates and an increase in working hours for GPs facing more competition.
Speaker
Dr Susan J. Méndez is a Research Fellow in the Health Economics Research Program at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in competition policy and the organisation and regulation of markets, particularly of healthcare markets. In her work, Dr Méndez explores how the design of institutions influences the behaviour of and interactions between doctors, patients, and funding agencies (government and private health insurance).
Dr Méndez research strands revolve around three interconnected areas: (1) pharmaceutical markets, (2) the medical labour market, and (3) gender and women in STEM and medicine.
She is a coordinator of The University of Melbourne Health Economics Group (UMHEG), a member of the NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability (PCHSS) and a Research Fellow of the past Centre for Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics (MABEL).
Register now
Contact shannon.stanwell@monash.edu for registration details.
Event Details
- Date:
- 7 July 2021 at 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
- Venue:
- Monash University Caulfield campus, Building H, Level 2, Room H2.35
- Categories:
- Health Economics; CHE Seminar
Description
Funding freeze, competition and physicians' behaviours
Presented by Dr Susan Méndez (University of Melbourne) with Tor Iversen, Kushneel Prakash and Anthony Scott
How does government funding affect physician behaviour? To answer this question, we consider how general practitioners (GPs) adjust their fees, quantity and quality of care to a four-year freeze in the indexation of subsidies that the Australian government pays for medical services provided by GPs.
GP markets in Australia are competitive, with no patient enrolment, no control over GP practice locations, and prices being freely set by GPs. Using a quasi-experimental continuous difference in difference design, we test if the fee freeze was more likely to influence GPs facing more competition before the fee freeze was introduced. We use eleven waves (2008 to 2018) of detailed individual doctor-level panel data from a representative sample of over 5,000 GPs from the Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) panel survey. Data on fees and bulk billing are self-reported. We also link MABEL survey data to administrative data from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) for a subsample of 1,000 GPs that includes high-frequency data on prices charged, volume, and bulk-billing for every service billed between 2012 and 2019.
Preliminary results from the survey data show no difference in GPs' earnings in more competitive areas, but some evidence of lower bulk-billing rates and an increase in working hours for GPs facing more competition.
Speaker
Dr Susan J. Méndez is a Research Fellow in the Health Economics Research Program at the Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in competition policy and the organisation and regulation of markets, particularly of healthcare markets. In her work, Dr Méndez explores how the design of institutions influences the behaviour of and interactions between doctors, patients, and funding agencies (government and private health insurance).
Dr Méndez research strands revolve around three interconnected areas: (1) pharmaceutical markets, (2) the medical labour market, and (3) gender and women in STEM and medicine.
She is a coordinator of The University of Melbourne Health Economics Group (UMHEG), a member of the NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability (PCHSS) and a Research Fellow of the past Centre for Research Excellence in Medical Workforce Dynamics (MABEL).
Register now
Contact shannon.stanwell@monash.edu for registration details.