| Summary: | 碩士 === 長庚大學 === 醫務管理學研究所 === 94 === Past studies demonstrate that providers or organizations under competition would change behaviors and adapt to the circumstances. In recent years, as medical manpower supply increases and the implementation of global budget system, medical competition is day by day intensified. This research aims to understand how private-owned clinics in Taiwan respond to market competition. The study period includes 1998 and 2003. The sample consists of 8,544 clinics in 1998, and 8,571 in 2003. The unit of observed market is township. The main analysis was performed with logit regression.
The result shows that, the proportion of group practice from 1998 to 2003 rises from 16.85% to 23.26%. The average scale of practice has little changed, increases from an average of 2.49 physicians to 2.54 physicians. The logit regression shows that, more population and higher competition are positively associated with the probability of group practice. Clinics of specialties like internal medicine, otolaryngology, ophthalmology are more likely to use group practice than general medicine.
This findings support the hypothesis that market competition and group practice are positively related. Compared to the documented high willingness to participate in group practice, physicians in Taiwan in fact did not transfer that willingness into action. In the whole, the solo practice was still the clinics main practice mode, indicating there are likely to be barriers to group practices.
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