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Market Concentration and Prescribing Behaviour in Primary Care| title | Market Concentration and Prescribing Behaviour in Primary Care |
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| start_date | 2023/06/29 |
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| schedule | 11h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle R2-20 |
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| summary | A significant proportion of primary care expenditures arise from the prescription of drugs, with physicians having some degree of autonomy in deciding whether and which drug to choose for a particular patient. While medical reasons and guidelines primarily influence these decisions, economic factors may also play a role. Given the ongoing trend of practice mergers or closures in the English NHS over several decades, we investigate the per-patient prescribing volume and costs in increasingly concentrated markets. We employ quarterly data from 2015 to 2019 for 7,300 practices in the English national health system. Concentration is evaluated using a population-weighted Herfindahl-Hirschman Index that is based on predicted patient flows rather than observed ones to address endogeneity concerns. Our findings suggest that greater market concentration leads to a reduction in total drug prescriptions and their associated costs, particularly for generics and over-the-counter drugs. However, the concentration effect does not appear to influence primary care prescriptions for insulin. Therefore, the impact is more significant for drugs that allow GPs greater discretion in their prescribing behavior. |
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| responsibles | Chassagnon, Apouey |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2023/06/21 11:05 UTC |
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