Physician Practice Style and Patient Health Outcomes: The Case of Heart Attacks

50 Pages Posted: 1 Jun 2015 Last revised: 24 Jun 2023

See all articles by Janet Currie

Janet Currie

Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

W. Bentley MacLeod

Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Columbia University - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Jessica Van Parys

Hunter College, CUNY

Date Written: May 2015

Abstract

When a patient arrives at the Emergency Room with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), the provider on duty must quickly decide how aggressively the patient should be treated. Using Florida data on all such patients from 1992-2014, we decompose practice style into two components: The provider’s probability of conducting invasive procedures on the average patient (which we characterize as aggressiveness), and the responsiveness of the choice of procedure to the patient’s characteristics. We show that within hospitals and years, patients with more aggressive providers have consistently higher costs and better outcomes. Since all patients benefit from higher utilization of invasive procedures, targeting procedure use to the most appropriate patients benefits these patients at the expense of the less appropriate patients. We also find that the most aggressive and responsive physicians are young, male, and trained in top 20 schools.

Suggested Citation

Currie, Janet and MacLeod, William Bentley and Van Parys, Jessica, Physician Practice Style and Patient Health Outcomes: The Case of Heart Attacks (May 2015). NBER Working Paper No. w21218, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2612773

Janet Currie (Contact Author)

Princeton University ( email )

Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
United States
6092587393 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.princeton.edu/~jcurrie

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Cambridge, MA 02138
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Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
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Germany

William Bentley MacLeod

Princeton University ( email )

HOME PAGE: http://www.wbmacleod.edu

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Columbia University - Department of Economics ( email )

420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Jessica Van Parys

Hunter College, CUNY ( email )

695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065
United States

HOME PAGE: http://econ.hunter.cuny.edu/faculty/economics-faculty/jessica-van-parys/

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