Physician dispensing and antibiotic prescriptions
- Filippini, Massimo Istituto microeconomia e economia pubblica (MecoP), Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
- Masiero, Giuliano Istituto microeconomia e economia pubblica (MecoP), Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
- Moschetti, Karine Department of Economics and Technology Management, University of Bergamo, Italy
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2009
25 p.
English
The regulation on prescribing and dispensing of antibiotics has a double purpose: to enhance access to antibiotic treatment and to reduce the inappropriate use of drugs. Nevertheless, incentives to dispensing physicians may lead to inefficiencies. We sketch a theoretical model of the market for antibiotic treatment and empirically investigate the impact of self-dispensing on the per capita outpatient antibiotic consumption using data from small geographic areas in Switzerland. We find evidence that a greater proportion of dispensing practices is associated with higher levels of antibiotic use. This suggests that health authorities have a margin to adjust economic incentives on dispensing practices in order to reduce antibiotic misuse.
- Language
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- English
- Classification
- Economics
- License
- License undefined
- Identifiers
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- RERO DOC 13030
- ARK ark:/12658/srd1318309
- Persistent URL
- https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1318309
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