ETH Zurich, Switzerland; KU Leuven, Belgium.
University of Innsbruck, Austria.
J Health Econ. 2024 May;95:102887. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2024.102887. Epub 2024 May 8.
This paper investigates the influence of gifts - monetary and in-kind payments - from drug firms to US physicians on prescription behavior and drug costs. Using causal models and machine learning, we estimate physicians' heterogeneous responses to payments on antidiabetic prescriptions. We find that payments lead to increased prescription of brand drugs, resulting in a cost rise of $23 per dollar value of transfer received. Paid physicians show higher responses when they treat higher proportions of patients receiving a government-funded low-income subsidy that lowers out-of-pocket drug costs. We estimate that introducing a national gift ban would reduce diabetes drug costs by 2%.
本文研究了药企向美国医生提供的礼品（货币和实物支付）对处方行为和药品费用的影响。我们使用因果模型和机器学习方法，估计了医生对治疗糖尿病处方的支付的异质反应。我们发现，支付会导致品牌药物处方增加，从而使每收到 1 美元转移价值的成本增加 23 美元。当支付医生治疗接受政府资助的低收入补贴的患者比例较高时，他们的反应更高，这种补贴降低了患者的自付药品费用。我们估计，实施全国性的礼品禁令将使糖尿病药物成本降低 2%。
