For some considerable time now the interface between ambulatory and hospital care has been mooted as a cause of inefficiencies in the German health system and there have been calls for a softening of the strict separation between the two sectors. This debate emphasizes the need for detailed...

Background: In developed countries around the world there is a trend to enhance the public-private collaboration in healthcare. In Spain, a decentralized country with a NHS funded with taxes and universal coverage, commissioning to for-profit private hospitals the production of healthcare...

Prospective payment arrangements are now the main form of hospital funding in most developed countries. An essential component of such arrangements is the classification system used to differentiate patients according to their expected resource requirements. In this article we describe the...

Background: This paper analyses the volume-outcome relationship and the effects of minimum volume regulations in the German hospital sector. Methods: We use a full sample of administrative data from the unselected, complete German hospital population for the years 2005 to 2007. We apply...

Objective: Examine cost-driving factors of schizophrenia in Germany for patients prior- and post-switch from an oral antipsychotic therapy to aripiprazole-depot and perform a budget impact analysis (BIA) referring to the context of German health care. Methods: A single-armed, retrospective,...

We analyze a rationale for official authorization of patient dumping in the prospective payment policy framework. We show that when the insurer designs the healthcare payment policy to let hospitals dump high-cost patients, there is a trade-off between the disutility of dumped patients (changes...

Background: The prospective reimbursement of hospitals through the grouping of patients into a finite number of categories (Diagnosis Related Groups, DRGs), is common to many European countries. However, the specific categories used vary greatly across countries, using different characteristics...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the German diagnosis related groups (G-DRG) cost accounting scheme by assessing its resource allocation at hospital level and its tariff calculation at national level. First, the paper reviews and assesses the three steps in the G-DRG resource allocation...

Background: An equitable and affordable healthcare system requires a constant search for the optimal way to deliver increasingly expensive neonatal care. Therefore, evaluating the impact of hospital intensity around birth on long-term health outcomes is necessary if we are to assess the value of...

The perception of the health sector from an economic policy point of view is changing. In the past, health expenditure was mostly seen as a "cost" item, probably because many medical treatments are covered by public health insurance. However, policymakers are increasingly realizing that a...