Does information facilitate matching between doctors and patients? : experimental evidence from a public hospital in China

Abstract

Social media provides a new channel for healthcare providers to promote their services to patients. This promotion may help utilize medical resources but can result in detrimental distributional outcomes. Despite such potential consequences, research designed to evaluate the efficacy and consumer welfare of medical promotion is limited. This study is aimed to investigate how various forms of social media promotion influences patients’ behavior regarding their willingness to seek medical treatment and their choice of doctors. One essential goal of the study is to examine the role of trust in social media promotion. The study leverages detailed data from reception desk surveys in combination with field experiments from a public hospital to estimate the causal effects of social media promotion. The conclusion of this paper will provide implications for the optimal utilization and distribution of healthcare resources in the Chinese medical market.