What motivates physicians in their provision of health care

Abstract: Policymakers aim to design policies that encourage physicians to provide high-quality care in  a cost-effective way. Studies find that such policies often lead to unintended and heterogenous  responses. A more complete understanding of what drives physicians’ behaviour is therefore needed to design more effective policies. Little empirical evidence exists on physicians’ motivations to provide care. This study aims to estimate the association between physicians’ different types of motivations and their provision of care. More specifically, we explain physicians’ provision of care by their financial motivation, altruism towards patients, altruism  towards society, and intrinsic motivation. We measure physicians’ motivations using validated questions from a nation-wide survey of general practitioners (GPs) in Denmark in 2019. We  link this survey data with detailed administrative register data on the GPs’ supply of services, prescribing of medication, number of enlisted patients, and patient case-mix. Preliminary findings show that GPs’ provision of care is not only associated with their degree of financial motivation, but also their altruism towards both their patients and society as well as their intrinsic motivation. Designing effectful policies may therefore require taking all these heterogenous motivations to provide care into account.