Games that Doctors PlayTwo-layered agency problems in a medical system

Medical doctors act as agents of their patients by either treating them directly orreferring them to other more or differently specialized doctors, who therebybecome “agents of agents”. The main aim of this paper is to model centralaspects of such two-layered agency relations in the medical sector. On the basisof our model, we draw some tentative conclusions concerning policy issues. Inparticular, we suggest relying on a strict separation of roles between diagnosticand therapeutic agents with counseling practitioners acting as gate-keepers of themedical system.