Physicians, sick leave certificates, and patients' subsequent employment outcomes

I analyze how general practitioners (GPs) indirectly affect their patients' employment outcomes by deciding the length of sick leaves. I use an instrumental variables framework where spell durations are identified through supply‐side certification measures. I find that a day of sick leave certi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health economics 2018-06, Vol.27 (6), p.923-936
Main Author: Ahammer, Alexander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Austria
Certificates
Certification
Employment
Employment - statistics & numerical data
Employment status
Endogenous
Family physicians
Female
general practitioners
General Practitioners - standards
Health economics
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Physicians
Sick leave
Sick Leave - statistics & numerical data
sick leave duration
Tenure
Time Factors
Unemployed people
Unemployment - statistics & numerical data
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:I analyze how general practitioners (GPs) indirectly affect their patients' employment outcomes by deciding the length of sick leaves. I use an instrumental variables framework where spell durations are identified through supply‐side certification measures. I find that a day of sick leave certified only because the worker's GP has a high propensity to certify sick leaves decreases the employment probability persistently by 0.45–0.69 percentage points, but increases the risk of becoming unemployed by 0.28–0.44 percentage points. These effects are mostly driven by workers with low job tenure. Several robustness checks show that endogenous matching between patients and GPs does not impair identification. My results bear important implications for doctors: Whenever medically justifiable, certifying shorter sick leaves to protect the employment status of the patient may be beneficial.
ISSN:1057-9230
1099-1050
DOI:10.1002/hec.3646