Seminar Series

2024 - 2025

 Seminar Financed by the TEPREM project

Speaker: Aaron Kaye (University of Michigan).

Title: “Differential Impacts of Online Ratings in the Market for Medical ”.

joint with Michael Luca (Havard BS) and Sonal Vats (U of Sacred Heart)

Date: Thursday, 16 January at 12h00 (Paris Time).

Abstract: This project focuses on ZocDoc.com – a unique website that integrates physician profiles, patient reviews, and appointment scheduling onto a single platform. We collected data from the website every day for over a year to construct a novel dataset consisting of profiles, reviews, and ratings for primary care physicians in eight metropolitan divisions. We infer bookings from daily records of appointment availability. ZocDoc displays ratings on a scale of one to five stars, with overall average ratings rounded to the nearest half-star. We use a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of reviews on patients’ choice of physician. Our preliminary results suggest that patients care quite a bit about quality. However, due to physicians’ capacity constraints and the level of demand, 4, 4.5, and 5-star doctors find most of their offered appointments are booked. The main distinction is timing, with lower rating physicians’ appointments booked once the appointments with higher-rated physicians become scarce. We find approximately a doubling in patient volume across the cutoff from 4.5 to 5 stars. We conclude by evaluating the differential impact of ratings, finding that the effects are higher for women physicians and physicians with more reviews. We find a small but insignificant difference for hospital affiliate physicians.

Here are links to the speaker’s website, the FEELab website and the TEPREME project website:

https://sites.google.com/view/aaronkaye/home

https://sites.google.com/view/feelabtbs/

https://sites.google.com/view/tepreme/home

You are cordially invited to participate in the following seminar of the FEELab, which will take place in Room 727-730, Sebastopol building .

For more information, please contact: Chiara CANTA c.canta@tbs-education.fr, Pierre Mella-Barral p.mella-barral@tbs-education.fr or Cam Ly TRAN cam-ly.tran@tbs-education.fr