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The European Journal of Health Economics
Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics 3/2007

01-09-2007 | Original paper

Variations in activity and practice patterns: a French study for GPs

Authors: Sophie Béjean, Christine Peyron, Renaud Urbinelli

Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics | Issue 3/2007

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Abstract

Objectives

To identify the different practice profiles of general practitioners (GPs) in order to test the hypothesis of heterogeneity in physician behaviour.

Data

For the year 2000, 4,660 GPs from two regions in France. Variables: volume and structure of the physicians’ medical activity, income level, personal characteristics, socioeconomic and geographical environment, characteristics of their patients.

Methods

A cluster analysis to identify different practice profiles and a regression analysis to display the determinants of the physicians’ activity.

Results

Four different homogeneous groups can be identified, each one associating a physician’s level of activity to his socioeconomic status. The level and the intensity of medical activity depend on individual factors, patients’ characteristics as well as the socioeconomic context.

Conclusions

There is no uniformity in the way GPs practice medicine. An immediate consequence is that any cost-containment measure that is applied uniformly to all GPs inevitably results in different outcomes according to the physicians’ category type.
Footnotes
1
To establish a choice of explanatory variables of the econometric models, we examined their correlation and tested for eventual multi-collinearity between variables using zero-order correlation coefficients between the regressors, with auxillary regressions of one regressor on all other regressors in the model. No serious multi-collinearity was detected.
 
2
Non-paying patients have long-term illnesses that justify in being entirely financed by compulsory health insurance.
 
3
The district (canton) is a very small area. In a same county (département) there are several districts (between 30 and 63 districts for the counties concerned by our study). In Aquitaine, there are five counties, in Burgundy, there are four counties.
 
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Metadata
Title
Variations in activity and practice patterns: a French study for GPs
Authors
Sophie Béjean
Christine Peyron
Renaud Urbinelli
Publication date
01-09-2007
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
The European Journal of Health Economics / Issue 3/2007
Print ISSN: 1618-7598
Electronic ISSN: 1618-7601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-006-0023-4

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