Even in wealthy economies, access to medicines is increasingly affected by medicine shortages – an issue exacerbated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper was to examine the extent and nature of medicine shortages in OECD countries (pre-COVID-19) and explore the...

Over the last decade, the U.S. Medicare program has added new billing codes to enhance the financial rewards for Chronic Care Management and Transitional Care Management. We analyze the effects of introducing these new billing codes. First, we provide evidence on the adoption of the new codes by...

Public organisations are subjected to weak incentives for competition. Therefore, institutional Darwinism cannot apply. Regulation and performance monitoring is required to protect the public interest. This is particularly the case of health care organisations, where strong incentives may become...

This paper studies entry and capacity decisions by dialysis providers in the U.S. We estimate a structural model where providers make strategic continuous choices of capacities based on private information about own costs and beliefs about competitors' behaviors. We evaluate the impact on market...

In this paper we document a process of price convergence in the European market for pharmaceutical products and relate it to access to innovative medicines in individual countries. The EU is a peculiar case study, where free circulation of goods coexists with pricing policies designed and...

Using commercial claims for 2012-2013 from Colorado's All-Payer Claims Database, we examine how medical service prices vary for five hospital-based procedures and the complexity adjusted inpatient price. We find that prices vary substantially in multiple dimensions. Our analysis indicates that...

In this paper, we explore the effects of primary care physician (PCP) practice competition on five distinct quality metrics directly tied to screening, follow-up care, and prescribing behavior under Medicare Part B. Controlling for physician, practice, and area characteristics as well as zip...

Specialty hospitals tend to negotiate higher commercial insurance payments, even for relatively routine procedures with comparable clinical quality across hospital types. How specialty hospitals can maintain such a price premium remains an open question. In this paper, we examine a potential...

This study seeks to provide evidence for deciding whether or not a pharmaceutical innovation should be included in the benefit list of social health insurance. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in Germany to measure preferences for modern insulin therapy. Of the 1,100 individuals...

In Scandinavia, the provision of health care services has been, almost entirely, the responsibility of the public health care system. However, in the last five to seven years there has been remarkable growth in the private health care market. These health care services are obtained normally...