The Causal Effect of High-Quality Physician-Patient Relationships on Healthcare Costs and Outcomes: Differences by Race/Ethnicity and the Effect of Racial/Ethnic Concordance

This study will use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to examine whether the quality of the physician-patient relationship causally influences health and/or cost outcomes and whether this impact varies by patient race, physician race and the racial concordance of the pair. Model parameters will be used to estimate how much health and cost disparities could be narrowed by altering the quality of the physician-patient relationship or the racial concordance of the pair and to explore the business case for reducing outcome disparities due to the physician-patient quality and clinician bias. Findings are expected to enhance growing evidence on racial/ethnic disparities in health care and may inform effective policy changes.