Incentive Mechanism for Online–Offline Dual-Channel Healthcare Services While Considering Spillover Effects

This paper investigates the incentive mechanism for dual-channel healthcare service supply chains, where doctors simultaneously undertake both offline and online medical tasks, based on the common agency theory. Considering the geographical distance between online patients and public hospitals, we construct common agency, game-theoretic models under two scenarios: without spillover effects and with spillover effects. Through analytical solutions, we derive the equilibrium outcomes for both scenarios and conduct comparative and numerical analyses. The findings reveal that as follows: (1) Compared to the scenario without spillover effects, the incentive intensity for offline healthcare increases when spillover effects are considered, and doctors exert higher effort levels in offline healthcare. (2) The incentive intensity for online healthcare may decrease, yet doctors’ effort levels in the online channel do not decline accordingly and may even increase; (3) Non-economic incentives (e.g., online reputation) exhibit a substitution effect on economic incentives; (4) Online reputation not only influences decision-making in the online healthcare channel but also affects decisions in the offline channel through spillover effects. These findings provide valuable insights for public hospitals and online healthcare platforms to optimize incentive structures and for doctors to allocate efforts effectively across dual-channel healthcare services.