Study: Gender of Evaluating Doctor Influences Likelihood of Disability Determination for Women

Thursday, December 30, 2021 | 0

An analysis of data from medical evaluations in Texas reportedly found female doctors were more likely to declare injured women disabled than male doctors.

“Compared to differences among their male patient counterparts, female patients randomly assigned a female doctor rather than a male doctor are 5% more likely to be evaluated as disabled and receive 8.5% more subsequent cash benefits on average,” the report reads. “There is no analogous gender-match effect for male patients.”

Study authors — Marika Cabral from the University of Texas, Austin, and Marcus Dillender from the University of Illinois at Chicago — write that only implication of their findings is that increasing the share of female doctors would increase assessed disability and case benefits for women and have little impact on outcomes for men.

“Extrapolating from our estimates, we find that increasing the share of independent medical evaluations performed by female doctors from 17% to 50% would increase the share of female patients evaluates as disabled, closing 39.8% of the overall gender gap conditional on observables among claimants with independent medical evaluations,” the study reads.

The authors write that, more broadly, the findings highlight “the importance of gatekeeper discretion in public programs.” While the analysis focuses on policies that shift the composition of evaluators, policymakers could also consider broader policies that aim to reduce the impact of discretion on evaluations, such as requiring multiple assessments for high-stakes evaluations, mandating evaluators receive de-biasing training and encouraging the use of claimant advocates.

A copy of the study, “Gender Differences in Medical Evaluations: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Doctors,” is here.