Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot. If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch.
Choice in the presence of experts: the role of general practitioners in patients’ hospital choice. Journal of Health Economics [PubMed] [RePEc] Published 26th June 2018
In the UK, patients are in principle free to choose which hospital they use for elective procedures. However, as these choices operate through a GP referral, the extent to which the choice is ‘free’ is limited. The choice set is provided by the GP and thus there are two decision-makers. It’s a classic example of the principal-agent relationship. What’s best for the patient and what’s best for the local health care budget might not align. The focus of this study is on the applied importance of this dynamic and the idea that econometric studies that ignore it – by looking only at patient decision-making or only at GP decision-making – may give bias estimates. The author outlines a two-stage model for the choice process that takes place. Hospital characteristics can affect choices in three ways: i) by only influencing the choice set that the GP presents to the patient, e.g. hospital quality, ii) by only influencing the patient’s choice from the set, e.g. hospital amenities, and iii) by influencing both, e.g. waiting times. The study uses Hospital Episode Statistics for 30,000 hip replacements that took place in 2011/12, referred by 4,721 GPs to 168 hospitals, to examine revealed preferences. The choice set for each patient is not observed, so a key assumption is that all hospitals to which a GP made referrals in the period are included in the choice set presented to patients. The main findings are that both GPs and patients are influenced primarily by distance. GPs are influenced by hospital quality and the budget impact of referrals, while distance and waiting times explain patient choices. For patients, parking spaces seem to be more important than mortality ratios. The results support the notion that patients defer to GPs in assessing quality. In places, it’s difficult to follow what the author did and why they did it. But in essence, the author is looking for (and in most cases finding) reasons not to ignore GPs’ preselection of choice sets when conducting econometric analyses involving patient choice. Econometricians should take note. And policymakers should be asking whether freedom of choice is sensible when patients prioritise parking and when variable GP incentives could give rise to heterogeneous standards of care.
Using evidence from randomised controlled trials in economic models: what information is relevant and is there a minimum amount of sample data required to make decisions? PharmacoEconomics [PubMed] Published 20th June 2018
You’re probably aware of the classic ‘irrelevance of inference’ argument. Statistical significance is irrelevant in deciding whether or not to fund a health technology, because we ought to do whatever we expect to be best on average. This new paper argues the case for irrelevance in other domains, namely multiplicity (e.g. multiple testing) and sample size. With a primer on hypothesis testing, the author sets out the regulatory perspective. Multiplicity inflates the chance of a type I error, so regulators worry about it. That’s why triallists often obsess over primary outcomes (and avoiding multiplicity). But when we build decision models, we rely on all sorts of outcomes from all sorts of studies, and QALYs are never the primary outcome. So what does this mean for reimbursement decision-making? Reimbursement is based on expected net benefit as derived using decision models, which are Bayesian by definition. Within a Bayesian framework of probabilistic sensitivity analysis, data for relevant parameters should never be disregarded on the basis of the status of their collection in a trial, and it is up to the analyst to properly specify a model that properly accounts for the effects of multiplicity and other sources of uncertainty. The author outlines how this operates in three settings: i) estimating treatment effects for rare events, ii) the number of trials available for a meta-analysis, and iii) the estimation of population mean overall survival. It isn’t so much that multiplicity and sample size are irrelevant, as they could inform the analysis, but rather that no data is too weak for a Bayesian analyst.
Life satisfaction, QALYs, and the monetary value of health. Social Science & Medicine [PubMed] Published 18th June 2018
One of this blog’s first ever posts was on the subject of ‘the well-being valuation approach‘ but, to date, I don’t think we’ve ever covered a study in the round-up that uses this method. In essence, the method is about estimating trade-offs between (for example) income and some measure of subjective well-being, or some health condition, in order to estimate the income equivalence for that state. This study attempts to estimate the (Australian) dollar value of QALYs, as measured using the SF-6D. Thus, the study is a rival cousin to the Claxton-esque opportunity cost approach, and a rival sibling to stated preference ‘social value of a QALY’ approaches. The authors are trying to identify a threshold value on the basis of revealed preferences. The analysis is conducted using 14 waves of the Australian HILDA panel, with more than 200,000 person-year responses. A regression model estimates the impact on life satisfaction of income, SF-6D index scores, and the presence of long-term conditions. The authors adopt an instrumental variable approach to try and address the endogeneity of life satisfaction and income, using an indicator of ‘financial worsening’ to approximate an income shock. The estimated value of a QALY is found to be around A$42,000 (~£23,500) over a 2-year period. Over the long-term, it’s higher, at around A$67,000 (~£37,500), because individuals are found to discount money differently to health. The results also demonstrate that individuals are willing to pay around A$2,000 to avoid a long-term condition on top of the value of a QALY. The authors apply their approach to a few examples from the literature to demonstrate the implications of using well-being valuation in the economic evaluation of health care. As with all uses of experienced utility in the health domain, adaptation is a big concern. But a key advantage is that this approach can be easily applied to large sets of survey data, giving powerful results. However, I haven’t quite got my head around how meaningful the results are. SF-6D index values – as used in this study – are generated on the basis of stated preferences. So to what extent are we measuring revealed preferences? And if it’s some combination of stated and revealed preference, how should we interpret willingness to pay values?
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