IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/hecopl/v11y2016i02p121-140_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why healthcare providers merge

Author

Listed:
  • Postma, Jeroen
  • Roos, Anne-Fleur

Abstract

In many OECD countries, healthcare sectors have become increasingly concentrated as a result of mergers. However, detailed empirical insight into why healthcare providers merge is lacking. Also, we know little about the influence of national healthcare policies on mergers. We fill this gap in the literature by conducting a survey study on mergers among 848 Dutch healthcare executives, of which 35% responded (resulting in a study sample of 239 executives). A total of 65% of the respondents was involved in at least one merger between 2005 and 2012. During this period, Dutch healthcare providers faced a number of policy changes, including increasing competition, more pressure from purchasers, growing financial risks, de-institutionalisation of long-term care and decentralisation of healthcare services to municipalities. Our empirical study shows that healthcare providers predominantly merge to improve the provision of healthcare services and to strengthen their market position. Also efficiency and financial reasons are important drivers of merger activity in healthcare. We find that motives for merger are related to changes in health policies, in particular to the increasing pressure from competitors, insurers and municipalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Postma, Jeroen & Roos, Anne-Fleur, 2016. "Why healthcare providers merge," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 121-140, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:11:y:2016:i:02:p:121-140_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1744133115000304/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Owsley, Kelsey M. & Lindrooth, Richard C., 2022. "Understanding the relationship between nonprofit hospital community benefit spending and system membership: An analysis of independent hospital acquisitions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Mesman, Roos & Faber, Marjan J. & Berden, Bart J.J.M. & Westert, Gert P., 2017. "Evaluation of minimum volume standards for surgery in the Netherlands (2003–2017): A successful policy?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(12), pages 1263-1273.
    3. van Dijk, T.S. (Tessa) & van der Scheer, W.K. (Wilma) & Janssen, R.T.J.M. (Richard), 2021. "Power, legitimacy and urgency: Unravelling the relationship between Dutch healthcare organisations and their financial stakeholders," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(8), pages 1077-1084.
    4. Cyril Benoît, 2023. "The regulatory path to healthcare systems’ financialization," Post-Print hal-04220439, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:hecopl:v:11:y:2016:i:02:p:121-140_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/hep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.