Towards an economic model of the Dutch health care sector

Abstract

This paper describes the construction of a model of the Dutch health care sector. It discusses the behaviour of patients, general practitioners, medical specialists and hospital managers. It also analyses the various ways the actors interact, such as general practitioners supplying the services demanded by patients, specialists dispatching referrals made by general practitioners or hospital managers boosting output to match an increasing amount of specialist services. Numerical simulations illustrate the various mechanisms in the model.

Empirical Models of Demand for Out-Patient Physician Services and Their Relevance to the Assessment of Patient Payment Policies: A Critical Review of the Literature

“…To be useful for the analysis of patient payment policies, the model of consumer demand for out-patient physician services could take into account the exiting empirical analyses (e.g., [70,71]). However, it should also seek to integrate the level of informal patient payments (where relevant) and the behavior of health care providers.…”