The objective of the proposed pilot study is to measure the effect of information about the quality of network physicians on consumers' preference for health plan provider network features. Consumer preferences and the impact of information on these preferences have important implications for the ability of managed care to generate continued cost savings and quality improvements. In the absence of reliable and meaningful information about health plan quality, it is not known whether consumers value provider choice for its own sake or whether provider choice """"""""insures"""""""" against the possibility of being forced into a relationship with a low-quality provider. If consumers value provider choice as a means to quality, rather than as an end itself, then the availability of quality information may improve the competitive position of plans that demonstrate high quality regardless of the restrictiveness of their provider networks. The proposed pilot study is significant in that it employs an experimental approach to measure the effect of network features and information about physician quality on consumers' plan choices. These effects would be difficult, if not impossible, to measure using a non-experimental research design, because health plan features are often highly collinear or unmeasured in observational data. The experiment is administered in the form of a survey that asks respondents to make choices among hypothetical sets of plan alternatives. The results can be used to predict how the market share of a particular health plan will be affected by (1) changes in the availability of physician quality information and (2) changes in its own quality or provider network features and those of other plans in the market.
