Digital platforms reduce geographic frictions, enabling better matching between service providers and users. I quantify reallocation gains in Swedish online healthcare, using nation- wide time-conditional random assignment between patients and physicians. Matching high-risk patients with doctors effective at reducing Emergency Room visits lowers such visits by 4.4% (s.e. 1.3); reallocations also reduce counter-guideline antibiotics by 3.1% (1.3). I find limited trade-offs in matching: horizontal differentiation among doctors and varied patient needs allow improvement in multiple outcomes simultaneously. Effciency-enhancing reallocations also affect equity. The findings highlight the potential for care reorganization aligning provider heterogeneity with patient needs when geographic constraints are lifted.
Amanda Dahlstrand (Tue,) studied this question.