To help inform a conference organised by the Germany Ministry of Health (BMG) and the OECD on ‘Managing Hospital Volumes’ on the 11th April 2013, the OECD Secretariat produced this paper giving an international perspective on Germany’s situation and the current policy debate. It provides a...

Major disparities in the cost of health care have made the pricing of specialist and hospital services a contentious issue in South Africa, particularly in the private sector. To help inform policy debate, this paper profiles selected experiences on the pricing of health services, competition...

Health workforce planning aims to achieve a proper balance between the supply and demand for different categories of health workers, in both the short and longer-term. Workforce planning in the health sector is particularly important, given the time and cost involved in training new doctors and...

<OL><LI>While France has a universal public health insurance system, the coverage it provides is incomplete and the vast majority the French population has private complementary health insurance. Among OECD countries, the share of health care financed by private insurance is third highest behind the US...</li></ol>

This paper describes and assesses pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies in Canada, considering them in the context of the broader policy and market environment in which they operate, and investigating their role in contributing to Canada’s achievements in meeting a range of...

This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of the Swedish pharmaceutical sector, assesses the degree to which Sweden has achieved certain policy goals, and puts forth some key findings and conclusions. Thanks to low mark-ups in the distribution chain and no...

<OL><LI>This study updates and extends a previous study on equity in physician utilisation for a subset of the countries analyzed here (Van Doorslaer, Koolman and Puffer, 2002). It updates results to 2000 for 13 countries and adds new results for eight countries: Australia, Finland, France, Hungary,...</li></ol>

This paper examines aspects of the policy environment and market characteristics of Slovakia's pharmaceutical sector, and assesses the degree to which Slovakia has achieved certain policy goals. Pharmaceutical expenditure in Slovakia accounts for a higher share of total health expenditure than...

<OL><LI>This paper analyses the Slovak health insurance system and the policy challenges it faces. It describes the structure of health coverage and health sector reforms being implemented by the Slovak government. It provides a preliminary assessment of the possible impact of such reforms, with a focus...</li></ol>

<OL><LI>Private health insurance (PHI) is the sole source of primary health coverage for a third of the Netherlands’ population earning above a set income threshold. Social insurance (together with limited public (tax-based financing) is the main source of health coverage for the majority of the...</li></ol>