Doctor-patient differences in risk preferences, and their links to decision-making: a field experiment

We conduct a field experiment among patients and doctors, with the aim to test i) whether the two groups have similar risk preferences; and ii) whether differences in risk preferences between doctors and patients are associated with the likelihood of patients seeking a second medical opinion. We measure risk preferences using an adaptation of the Holt and Laury (2002) test to the healthcare context (Galizzi et al., 2013). We find no evidence that the two groups of doctors and patients systematically differ in their preferences towards risk. We find, however, robust evidence that differences between doctors’ and patients’ risk preferences associate with patients’ decision to look for a second opinion: the more diverse preferences are, the more likely patients are to seek a second opinion.