Preventive health care and payment systems
Martínez Giralt, Xavier (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica)
Barros, Pedro Pita (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

Date:	2003
Abstract:	Prevention has been a main issue of recent policy orientations in health care. This renews the interest on how different organizational designs and the definition of payment schemes to providers may affect the incentives to provide preventive health care. We focus on the externality resulting from referral decisions from primary to acute care providers. This makes our analysis complementary to most works in the literature allowing to address in a more direct way the issue of preventive health care. The analysis is performed through a series of examples combining different payment schemes at the primary care center and hospital. When hospitals are reimbursed according to costs, prevention efforts are unlikely to occur. However, under a capitation payment for the primary care center and prospective budget for the hospital, prevention efforts increase when shifting from an independent to an integrated management. Also, from a normative standpoint, optimal payment schemes are simpler under joint management.
Grants:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2001-SGR-00162
Note:	Altres ajuts: BEC2000-0172
Rights:	Tots els drets reservats.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Assistència mèdica ; Aspectes econòmics ; Preventive health care ; Payment system
Published in:	Topics in economic analysis and policy, Vol. 3 Núm. 1 (2003) , ISSN 1538-0653

DOI: 10.2202/1538-0653.1115

23 p, 405.6 KB

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