Excessive waiting times for elective surgery have been a long-standing concern in many national healthcare systems in the OECD. How do the hospital admission patterns that generate waiting lists affect different patients? What are the hospitals characteristics that determine waiting times? By...

The article is an attempt at diagnosing training needs of the employees of units operating in health care sector in the Podkarpacie Province. In times of permanent changes affecting each sphere of economy, providers of health care services cannot afford to remain outside this trend. Improving...

We study the effects of "balance billing", i.e., allowing physicians to charge a fee from patients in addition to the fee paid by Medicare. First, we show that on pure efficiency grounds the optimal Medicare fee under balance billing is zero. An active Medicare policy thus can only be justified...

This article looks at the application of performance measurement systems in the health sector across OECD countries. The data comes from the 2017 OECD Survey on Performance Measurement Systems in the Health Sector and Responsibilities across Levels of Government. The results show that the...

In this article we give a presentation of the Norwegian quality based financing (QBF) mechanism and our experiences with this financing mechanism. The article outlines the main features of the Norwegian health care system, and its financing mechanisms. We then focus in on the QBF with a...

Measuring health care productivity is important as health is a large sector of the economy and with the majority of funding coming from public sources, the outlook for productivity growth is a critical factor in the debate about fiscal sustainability. The UK has over 20 years’ experience of...

In light of the many discussions advocating the use of pay-for-performance and performance budgeting, this paper argues that discouraging experience with both approaches should temper expectations that performance measurement can be a reform that will make health care systems more "sustainable"...

Background: In health economic evaluation, utility associated with a health state is outcome-oriented and usually measured using the QALY methodology. Even though there is consistent evidence of utility not only being derived from outcomes but also from procedures, process utility has not been...

Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries undergo periodic medical reviews to determine if they continue to be eligible for disability benefits. We examine how these reviews affect beneficiary well-being by using administrative data to track the earnings of beneficiaries for up to 5...

HPV infections can cause substantial burden in females and males as it is associated with several genital cancers, in addition to genital warts. Traditional economic evaluations often focus on quantifying cost-effectiveness, however, it is increasingly recognized that vaccinations may generate...