In several instances, third-party payers negotiate prices of health care services with providers. We show that a third-party payer may prefer to deal with a professional association than with the sub-set constituted by the more efficient providers, and then apply the same price to all providers....

A feature present in countries with a National Health Service is the coexistence of a public and a private sector. Often, the public payer contracts with private providers while holding idle capacity. This is often seen as inefficiency from the management of public facilities. We present here a...

In several instances, third-party payers negotiate prices of health care services with providers. We show that a third-party payer may prefer to deal with a professional association than with the sub-set constituted by the more efficient providers, and then apply the same price to all providers....