The design of incentive schemes that improve quality of care is a central issue for the healthcare sector. Nowadays we observe many pay-for-performance programs, where payment is contingent on meeting indicators of provider effort, but also other alternative strategies have been introduced, for...

Pay-for-performance programs offering additional payments to GPs can be used not only to improve the quality of care but also for cost containment purposes. In this paper, we analyse the impact of removing financial incentives in primary care that were aimed at containing hospital expenditure in...

This paper examines the behaviour of public hospitals in response to the average payment incentives created by price changes for patients classified in different Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs). Using panel data on public hospitals located within the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, we test...

The reformulation of existing boundaries between primary and secondary care, in order to shift selected services traditionally provided by Emergency Departments to community-based alternatives has determined a variety of organisational solutions aimed at reducing the ED overcrowding. One...

Although the study of the association between interventions in primary care and health outcomes continues to produce mixed findings, programs designed to promote the greater compliance of General Practitioners and their diabetic patients with treatment guidelines have been increasingly...

We study patient mobility in the Italian National Health System, using patient-episode level data on elective Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty procedures over the years 2008-2011. We examine how patients' choice of the hospital is affected by changes in waiting times and clinical...