Signaling Effects Under Dynamic Capacity in Online Matching Platforms: Evidence from Online Health Consultation Communities

Online Health Consultation Communities (OHCCs) have emerged as vital platforms connecting patients with physicians for online consultations. However, finding the right match between patients and physicians can be tricky due to physicians’ changing capacity to consult on the OHCC. Our study delves into how signals provided by OHCCs on physicians’ professional status and behaviors can help make these matches successful, especially when considering their capacity fluctuations. We differentiate between two types of signals pertaining to physicians–owned, pertaining to their professional status, and earned, pertaining to their OHCC activity and patient reviews of the physician. Employing a Hidden Markov Model to analyze data from a large OHCC on physicians’ voluntary online consultations with patients, we find the role of the signals in efficient matching to be contingent on the capacity state of the physician. Physicians’ professional status is particularly important when they have less time available, and showing active participation in the community can make the status even more impactful. Conversely, when physicians have more availability, patient feedback becomes crucial, even diminish the importance of professional status. These insights suggest that OHCCs should tailor how information on physicians’ professional status and patient feedback are presented depending on physicians’ availability as this can help patients to make better choices. By being active in the OHCC and earning favorable patient feedback, physicians with more availability can improve their attractiveness to patients, even offsetting concerns that can stem from the lack of seniority of the physician. The findings underscore the need for OHCCs to develop signaling and matching mechanisms that consider the capacity of physicians, thereby fostering efficient and satisfactory patient-physician consultations.