We study whether the information patients have about physician quality when they choose a physician, influences their probability of switching physicians. We also study whether a physician with unfavorable characteristics, as perceived by patients (ex post), can compensate for patient switching...

This paper presents a medical cost function developed for a screening programme. The medical cost function is a function of advancement both directly and indirectly through survival. We discuss how the medical cost function is affected by screening through a shift in the distribution of cancers...

In Norway specialized health services are provided both by public hospitals and by privately practicing specialists who have a contract with the public sector. Patients’ co-payment is the same irrespective of the type of provider they visit. The ambition of equity in the allocation of medical...

In health economics, cost-effectiveness is defined as maximized health benefits for a given health budget. When there is a private alternative to public treatments, care must be taken when using costeffectiveness analysis to decide what types of treatments should be included in the public...

In the Norwegian capitation system each general practitioner (GP) has a personal list of patients. The payment system is a mix of a capitation fee and fee-for-service. From a model of a GP’s decisions we derive the optimal practice profile contingent on whether a GP experiences a shortage of...

Typically, the participation rate is below 100 per cent. In this paper pecuniary compensation is used to increase the participation rate. In a postal questionnaire to 5,000 people invited to screening for colorectal cancer, those not participating were asked "would you participate if you were...

In this paper, we compare and analyse the systems for financing long-term care for older people in the Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The three countries share common political traditions of local autonomy and universalism, and these common roots are very apparent when...

We study how market conditions influence referrals of patients by general practitioners (GPs). We set up a model of GP referral for the Norwegian health care system, where a GP receives capitation payment based on the number of patients in his practice, as well as fee-for-service reimbursements....

We present a stated-preference study where values of statistical lives (VSL) are derived both as public and private goods, and we distinguish between three different death causes, heart disease, environmentally related illnesses and traffic accidents. 1000 randomly chosen individuals in Norway...

This paper studies redistribution by means of a public supply of medical treatment. We show that the government can redistribute income towards low-ability individuals in a world of asymmetric information by offering bundles of medical treatment and redistributive payment. If self-selection is a...