Medical licensure: Social costs and social benefits.

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Abstract
Society has granted considerable regulatory powers to physician-dominated licensing boards. While achieving the social benefit of protecting the consumer by maintaining minimum standards for entry into the profession, the licensure mechanism has also resulted in substantial social costs. Excessive restriction on entry into the profession has occurred; difficulty in developing innovations in the distribution of medical care have resulted; and severe limitations on the activities of nonmedical health practitioners who pose a competitive threat to the physician have taken place. To reduce these social costs, the licensing mechanism should be reconstructed with physicians serving in advisory, not policy-making, positions.