Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty & the Ways to End it

by Abhijit V. Banerjee

the 3-3-3 rule: The median interaction lasts three minutes; the provider asks three questions and occasionally performs some examinations. The patient is then provided with three medicines (providers usually dispense medicine directly rather than writing prescriptions). Referrals are rare (fewer than 7 percent of the time); patients are given instructions only about half the time and only about one-third of doctors offer any guidance regarding follow-up. As if this is not bad enough, things are much worse in the public sector than in the private sector. Public providers spend about two minutes per patient on average. They ask fewer questions, and in most cases don’t touch the patient at all. Mostly, they just ask the patient for a diagnosis and then treat the patient’s self-diagnosis. Similar findings were discovered in several countries.