TY  - JOUR
AU  - Frank,Richard G.
AU  - Zeckhauser,Richard J.
TI  - Custom Made Versus Ready to Wear Treatments; Behavioral Propensities in Physician's Choices
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13445
PY  - 2007
Y2  - September 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13445
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13445.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard Frank
Department of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-0178
Fax: 617/432-1219
E-Mail: frank@hcp.med.harvard.edu

Richard J. Zeckhauser
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/495-1174
Fax: 617/384-9340
E-Mail: richard_zeckhauser@harvard.edu
AB  - To customize treatments to individual patients entails costs of coordination and cognition.  Thus, providers sometimes choose treatments based on norms for broad classes of patients.  We develop behavioral hypotheses explaining when and why doctors customize to the particular patient, and when instead they employ "ready-to-wear" treatments.  Our empirical studies examining length of office visits and physician prescribing behavior find evidence of norm-following behavior.  Some such behavior, from our studies and from the literature, proves sensible; but other behavior seems far from optimal.
ER  -