Expert Patients’ Use of Avoidable Health Care
We measure whether expert patients – those trained as physicians and nurses – have fewer emergency department visits and the reasons for these differences. Compared to similar patients, physicians and nurses had 19.8% and 5.1% fewer ED visits, principally due to fewer avoidable visits. The differences in avoidable visits between physicians and other patients were largest for diagnoses that often require prescriptions, which physicians often self-prescribed. Our results suggest that improving access to legitimate prescriptions for acute symptoms, more than improving patient education, can reduce avoidable health care.
-
-
Copy CitationPragya Kakani, Simone Matecna, and Amitabh Chandra, "Expert Patients’ Use of Avoidable Health Care," NBER Working Paper 33573 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w33573.Download Citation
-
More from the NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
