中文摘要
远程分诊是一种远程医疗服务，利用通信技术远程评估患者状况并确定其医疗需求。本文考察远程分诊如何影响患者寻求治疗的决策，以及医疗健康提供方（如医疗机构、医院或诊所）应在何时推出远程分诊服务。研究发现，远程分诊可能促使更多轻症患者寻求治疗，却抑制更多重症患者寻求治疗。这种情况发生在远程分诊缺乏足够精确度、且患者寻求治疗的麻烦成本落在适中范围之外时。具体而言，当麻烦成本较低时，患者通常倾向于寻求治疗，但远程分诊可能将重症患者错误分类，导致他们回避必要的医疗照护。反之，当麻烦成本较高时，患者往往倾向于留在家中，但远程分诊可能将轻症患者错误识别，促使他们寻求不必要的治疗。因此，即便远程分诊不产生成本，医疗健康提供方也可能放弃该服务，尽管远程分诊总能通过改善患者对自身医疗需求的评估来增加患者剩余。有趣的是，患者从收取更高价格的提供方处寻求治疗可能境况更好，因为这些提供方更可能采用远程分诊服务。这些结果提醒医疗健康政策制定者，远程分诊可能加剧而非缓解医疗健康低效问题。尽管如此，为改善患者剩余，政府有时应补贴提供方以使其提供远程分诊，或允许提供方收取更高的治疗费用。
Abstract
Teletriage is a telehealth service that uses telecommunication technologies to remotely assess patients’ conditions and determine their needs for medical treatment. This paper examines how teletriage affects patients’ decisions to seek treatment and when healthcare providers (e.g., medical businesses, hospitals, or clinics) should launch teletriage services. Our findings reveal that teletriage can encourage more mild patients to seek treatment, discouraging more severe patients. This occurs when teletriage lacks sufficient precision and patients’ hassle cost of seeking treatment falls outside a moderate range. Specifically, when hassle costs are low, patients are generally inclined to seek treatment, but teletriage can misclassify severe patients, leading them to avoid necessary care. Conversely, when hassle costs are high, patients tend to stay home, yet teletriage can misidentify mild patients, prompting them to seek unnecessary treatment. As a result, even if teletriage is costless, healthcare providers may abandon this service even though teletriage always increases patient surplus by improving their assessment of their medical needs. Interestingly, patients can be better off seeking treatment from providers who charge higher prices as these providers are more likely to adopt teletriage services. These results caution healthcare policymakers that teletriage can exacerbate healthcare inefficiency instead of alleviating it. Nevertheless, to improve patient surplus, the government should sometimes subsidize providers to offer teletriage or allow providers to charge a higher treatment fee.