Customizing Primary Care Delivery Using E-Visits

83 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2013 Last revised: 12 Jun 2021

See all articles by Hessam Bavafa

Hessam Bavafa

University of Wisconsin - Madison - School of Business

Sergei Savin

Columbia University - Columbia Business School; University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department

Christian Terwiesch

University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department

Date Written: June 11, 2021

Abstract

Technologies that enable ``e-visits'' -- remote interactions between patients and physicians -- are touted as a way to improve and expand primary care. We study a setting in which a physician can divert some of the patient demand away from the office visits and into the e-visits, which utilize less of the physician's service capacity while maintaining an appropriate quality of care. We explicitly model a distinguishing feature of primary care settings: patient office revisit intervals are determined jointly by the physician and her patients. Using our model, we identify settings where patients and physicians adopt e-visits. We analytically characterize the impact of e-visits on key system outcomes: panel size, patient health, and physician compensation. Notably, we identify settings -- defined in terms of patient panel features, parameters of primary care delivery, and physician compensation scheme -- in which at least one of the system outcomes suffers under e-visits. Our modeling approach highlights the importance of considering patient and physician responses to primary care interventions to understand their full impact.

Keywords: Telemedicine, Healthcare, Service Operations, Information Technology Policy and Management, Contracts, Panel Size, Primary Care, Patient Revisit Intervals, Healthcare Operations

Suggested Citation

Bavafa, Hessam and Savin, Sergei and Terwiesch, Christian, Customizing Primary Care Delivery Using E-Visits (June 11, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2363685 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2363685

Hessam Bavafa (Contact Author)

University of Wisconsin - Madison - School of Business ( email )

975 University Ave
4284C Grainger Hall
Madison, WI 53706
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://bus.wisc.edu/faculty/hessam-bavafa

Sergei Savin

Columbia University - Columbia Business School ( email )

3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
United States

University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

Christian Terwiesch

University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

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