PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Douven, Rudy
AU  - Remmerswaal, Minke
AU  - Zoutenbier, Robin
TI  - Do Altruistic Mental Health Care Providers Have Better Treatment Outcomes?
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.54.2.0716.8070R1
DP  - 2017 Sep 05
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0716-8070R1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2017/09/01/jhr.54.2.0716.8070R1.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2017/09/01/jhr.54.2.0716.8070R1.full
AB  - We study heterogeneity in provider altruism between self-employed mental health care providers in the Netherlands. Using a large administrative data set, we exploit the discontinuities in the compensation scheme to separate altruistically motivated providers from financially motivated providers. We find strong heterogeneity in provider altruism. Moreover, we find that more altruistically motivated providers treat mental health patients shorter and report better treatment outcomes, as measured by the improvement in Global Assessment of Functioning. These results suggest that provider altruism is positively related to treatment outcomes.