The impact of physician characteristics in conditional choice models for hospital care.

Recent research has investigated the determinants of the specific hospitals to which patients are admitted. Data limitations have led researchers to examine the effects of patient and hospital characteristics while ignoring the role of physician characteristics. In this study we analyze the effects of all three sets of factors on hospital choice in the greater Phoenix area during 1989. Our results suggest that physician characteristics are strong determinants of hospital choice, accounting for much of the explained variation. Differences in hospital quality and cost, on the other hand, exert significant effects on hospital choice but explain relatively little variation.