Document Type
Article
Original Publication Date
2013
Journal/Book/Conference Title
PLOS ONE
Volume
8
DOI of Original Publication
10.1371/journal.pone.0077096
Date of Submission
November 2014
Abstract
Many patients expect their doctor to help them choose a Medicare prescription drug plan. Whether the size of the choice set affects clinicians’ decision processes and strategy selection, and the quality of their choice, as it does their older patients, is an important question with serious financial consequences. Seventy medical students and internal medicine residents completed a within-subject design using Mouselab, a computer program that allows the information-acquisition process to be examined. We examined highly numerate physician trainees’ decision processes, strategy, and their ability to pick the cheapest drug plan—as price was deemed the most important factor in Medicare beneficiaries’ plan choice—from either 3 or 9 drug plans. Before adjustment, participants were significantly more likely to identify the lowest cost plan when facing three versus nine choices (67.3% vs. 32.8%, p
Rights
Copyright: © 2013 Barnes et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Is Part Of
VCU Healthcare Policy and Research Publications
Comments
Originally Published at https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077096