The study indicates that the GP-centered healthcare program does not lead to lower direct health care costs. However, it may lead to more intense and better coordinated healthcare in older, chronically ill patients with multiple conditions. Further studies are needed on long-term effects and clinical endpoints.
Global health care payment systems reflect enormous differences in provider characteristics, health systems, and development levels. Risk adjustment is used for payment and performance measurement to correct for demand heterogeneity and incentives for plans and providers to prefer healthy, low-cost patients, and to provide quality care. This article reviews the practical, theoretical, and statistical aspects of risk adjustment models, which use socio-demographic variables and more recently morbidity and pharmaceuticals, to predict outcomes. Diverse uses of risk adjustment include geographical budget allocations, health plan premium equalization, pay for performance, primary care provider payment, integrated provider networks, and rewards for good doctor performance. Settings in more than 30 countries are examined, which include high-, middle-and low-income countries, competitive health plans and single payer systems, integrated provider networks, clinics, and solo practice primary care doctors. Recent concepts in health economics are highlighted that hold potential for improving efficiency and equitable patient access to health care.
In this paper, we examine the effects of the introduction of free choice and price competition in social health insurance in Germany and the Netherlands. Using panel data at the sickness fund level we estimate the price elasticity of sickness fund choice in both countries. We find that the price elasticity in Germany is high and rapidly increasing. Consistent with findings of other studies on health plan choice, the price elasticity is much lower for elderly than for non-elderly. In the Netherlands, by contrast, the price elasticity of fund choice is negligible. Only when people were forced to choose a sickness fund, they were quite sensitive to premium differences. Key factors in explaining the observed differences in switching behavior between both countries are the degree of financial risk for sickness funds, the features of the risk-adjustment mechanism and the role of employers.
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