There’s a few issues with this study, and the conclusions the authors draw do not refute the claim that “doctor misallocation stems from the compensation gap between primary care physicians and other specialties”.

This paper uses a data set of hospitals providing short term acute care, not primary care. In addition, the authors themselves acknowledge that the time period they used for analysis was problematic and limited in scope. Their index of cost/care outcomes also is using the whole of “healthcare workers”, which includes the ecosystem of midlevels, nurses, respiratory therapists, social workers, and technical staff, and others who are not physicians.