In this paper, we analyze the prospective method of paying hospitals when the within-DRG variance is high. To avoid patients dumping, an outlier payment system is implemented. In the APDRG Swiss System, it consists in a mixture of fully prospective payments for low costs patients and partially...

This paper considers the optimality of setting a secret reserve price in ascending auctions. Contrary to intuition, an ascending auction is no longer equivalent to a second price auction when the reserve price is secret. We determine the seller's optimal reserve price policy when the bidders'...

Abstract Certain health insurers offer a free choice of providers and an identical copayment regardless of the provider. Others build networks and use selective contracting and financial incentives to channel policyholders to contracted suppliers. In the case of unregulated prices, we compare...