International comparisons of healthcare costs are growing in importance for a number of different applications. The use of common approaches to converting costs such as GDP purchasing power parities (PPPs) often does not reflect price differences in healthcare in an appropriate manner. This...

Rising pharmaceutical expenditure has become a major concern for policy makers in Germany over recent years. Therefore, the pharmaceutical market has been increasingly targeted by different kinds of regulation, focussing on both the supply and the demand side, using price, volume and spending...

Over the past 20 years, most European countries have introduced DRGs or similar grouping systems as instruments for hospital reimbursement. This paper compares and analyzes the methods used to determine prices for inpatient care within DRGs or similar grouping systems employed in nine EU member...

Germany has recently introduced a system of Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) to engender more appropriate resource allocation. The following article describes the German DRG-system and the methodologies used to determine prices. It analyses the extent to which prices, or calculated cost weights,...

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study is to assess the cost-effectiveness (net costs per life year gained) of telemedical devices for pre-clinical traffic accident emergency rescue in Germany. METHODS: Two equipment versions of a telemedical device are compared from a societal perspective with...

OBJECTIVE: To calculate per-case hospital costs for patients with cystic fibrosis under routine conditions from a healthcare provider's perspective; identify the impact of different cost categories; investigate whether cases with cystic fibrosis can be grouped into homogenous cost groups...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the price reactions of German pharmacies to changes made to OTC drug regulations in 2004. Prior to these changes, regulations guaranteed identical prices in all German pharmacies. METHODS: Two years after market deregulation, 256 pharmacies were surveyed to determine the...

Different reimbursement schemes for health care providers have been developed worldwide. They have evolved over time and have been influenced by politics, costs, patient needs and technological progress. Different methods in the valuation of technologies and their reflection in outpatient...

The issue of defining health benefit catalogues has recently gained new importance in Germany as a result of the creation of the new Institute for Quality and Efficiency. The Institute was designed to support the Federal Joint Committee conducting effectiveness studies for benefit coverage...

Since their introduction in 1993, the structure of physician drug budgets in Germany has changed frequently. Although highly disputed, they have limited the pharmaceutical expenditure of the Statutory Health Insurance Scheme for nearly one decade. This raises the question of how these savings...