Published In
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2024
Subjects
Health Research -- Patient preferences, Physician availability
Abstract
Roughly a quarter of physicians in the United States are either international medical graduates (IMGs) or foreign-born physicians (FBPs). We propose a theoretical model where patient preferences that disfavor IMGs/FBPs may result in these physicians offering better access to their services compared with non-IMGs/FBPs in equilibrium. We use data from two field experiments to test the predictions from the model: one concerning patient preferences and the other concerning physician availability. In the patient preferences field experiment, we find that patients strongly prefer physicians educated in the United States to IMGs by more than 2-to-1. In the physician availability field experiment, we find that US-born physicians generally have lower levels of availability including offering fewer appointments and longer wait times. These results may indicate a substantial underutilization of FBPs relative to US-born physicians and suggest that greater acceptance of IMGs/FBPs will improve access to healthcare in a system that is constrained by supply shortages.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2024 The Authors Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106813
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42809
Citation Details
Walker, B., Wisniewski, J., Tinkler, S., Stano, M., & Sharma, R. (2024). Patient preferences and physician availability based on physician nativity and international medical school attendance. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 228, 106813.