Objectives To (1) examine the influence of patient and provider attributes on physicians' diagnostic certainty and (2) assess the effect of diagnostic certainty on clinical therapeutic actions.Methods Factorial experiment of 128 generalist physicians using identical clinically authentic...

Objectives Since 2004 a large German health insurance company (Techniker Krankenkasse) has provided integrated inpatient health care (IHC) contracts to its members. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of this programme on patient satisfaction and health-related quality of life among...