IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v121y2017i2p119-125.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition policy for health care provision in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Kifmann, Mathias

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Germany has introduced a number of competitive elements into its public health care system. Sickness funds were given some freedom to sign selective contracts with providers. Competition between ambulatory care providers and hospitals was introduced for certain diseases and services. As competition has become more intense, the importance of competition law has increased. This paper reviews these areas of competition policy. The problems of introducing competition into a corporatist system are discussed. Based on the scientific evidence on the effects of competition, key lessons and implications for future policy are formulated.

Suggested Citation

  • Kifmann, Mathias, 2017. "Competition policy for health care provision in Germany," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 119-125.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:121:y:2017:i:2:p:119-125
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2016.11.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851016303220
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.healthpol.2016.11.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hendrik Schmitz & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2017. "Does Price Framing Affect the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(1), pages 88-127.
    2. repec:zbw:rwirep:0545 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bunnings, C,; & Schmitz, H,; & Tauchmann, H,; & Ziebarth, N.R,;, 2015. "How Health Plan Enrollees Value Prices Relative to Supplemental Benefits and Service Quality," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Achelrod, Dmitrij & Welte, Tobias & Schreyögg, Jonas & Stargardt, Tom, 2016. "Costs and outcomes of the German disease management programme (DMP) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)—A large population-based cohort study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(9), pages 1029-1039.
    5. Kathrin Roll & Tom Stargardt & Jonas Schreyögg, 2012. "Effect of Type of Insurance and Income on Waiting Time for Outpatient Care," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 37(4), pages 609-632, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Siciliani, Luigi & Chalkley, Martin & Gravelle, Hugh, 2017. "Policies towards hospital and GP competition in five European countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 103-110.
    2. Javier Cerezo-Espinosa de los Monteros & Antonio Castro-Torres & Juan Gómez-Salgado & Javier Fagundo-Rivera & Carlos Gómez-Salgado & Valle Coronado-Vázquez, 2021. "Administration of Strategic Agreements in Public Hospitals: Considerations to Enhance the Quality and Sustainability of Mergers and Acquisitions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Paul E. Orzechowski, 2018. "The Case for a Private Healthcare Insurance Monopoly," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 433-443, August.
    4. Gaughan, James & Siciliani, Luigi & Gravelle, Hugh & Moscelli, Giuseppe, 2020. "Do small hospitals have lower quality? Evidence from the English NHS," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    5. Volkert, Anna & Pfaff, Holger & Scholten, Nadine, 2020. "What Really Matters? Organizational Versus Regional Determinants of Hospitals Providing Medical Service Centres," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(12), pages 1354-1362.
    6. Wiebke Schuettig & Leonie Sundmacher, 2022. "The impact of ambulatory care spending, continuity and processes of care on ambulatory care sensitive hospitalizations," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(8), pages 1329-1340, November.
    7. Liyong Lu & Jay Pan, 2021. "Does hospital competition lead to medical equipment expansion? Evidence on the medical arms race," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 582-596, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Werbeck, Anna & Wübker, Ansgar & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2021. "Cream skimming by health care providers and inequality in health care access: Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1325-1350.
    2. Bührer, Christian & Fetzer, Stefan & Hagist, Christian, 2020. "Adverse selection in the German Health Insurance System – the case of civil servants," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(8), pages 888-894.
    3. Pilny, Adam & Wübker, Ansgar & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2017. "Introducing risk adjustment and free health plan choice in employer-based health insurance: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 330-351.
    4. Juan Pablo Atal & Hanming Fang & Martin Karlsson & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2019. "Exit, Voice, or Loyalty? An Investigation Into Mandated Portability of Front‐Loaded Private Health Plans," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 86(3), pages 697-727, September.
    5. Christian Bührer & Stefan Fetzer & Christian Hagist, 2018. "Adverse Selection in the German Health Insurance System – The Case of Civil Servants," WHU Working Paper Series - Economics Group 18-06, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management.
    6. Juan Pablo Atal & Hanming Fang & Martin Karlsson & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "German Long-Term Health Insurance: Theory Meets Evidence," NBER Working Papers 26870, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Schmitz, Hendrik, 2013. "Practice budgets and the patient mix of physicians – The effect of a remuneration system reform on health care utilisation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1240-1249.
    8. Heinrich Nils & Wübker Ansgar & Wuckel Christiane, 2018. "Waiting Times for Outpatient Treatment in Germany: New Experimental Evidence from Primary Data," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 238(5), pages 375-394, September.
    9. Rudy Douven & Ron van der Heijden & Thomas McGuire & Erik Schut, 2017. "Premium levels and demand response in health insurance: relative thinking and zero-price effects," CPB Discussion Paper 366, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    10. Douven, Rudy & van der Heijden, Ron & McGuire, Thomas & Schut, Frederik, 2020. "Premium levels and demand response in health insurance: relative thinking and zero-price effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 903-923.
    11. Tamara Bischof & Michael Gerfin & Tobias Mueller, 2021. "Attention Please! Health Plan Choice and (In-)Attention," Diskussionsschriften dp2111, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    12. Breyer Friedrich, 2018. "Was spricht gegen Zwei-Klassen-Medizin?," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 67(1), pages 30-41, May.
    13. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1509, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Reprint of: The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 86-104.
    15. Lindsey Woodworth, 2014. "The doctor will be with you ... shortly?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 138-174, April.
    16. Drake, Coleman, 2019. "What are consumers willing to pay for a broad network health plan?: Evidence from covered California," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 63-77.
    17. Kurt Lavetti & Thomas DeLeire & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2023. "How do low‐income enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces respond to cost‐sharing?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(1), pages 155-183, March.
    18. Milstein, Ricarda & Schreyögg, Jonas, 2022. "Activity-based funding based on diagnosis-related groups: The end of an era? A review of payment reforms in the inpatient sector in ten high-income countries," hche Research Papers 28, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    19. Mingming Xu & Benjamin Bittschi, 2022. "Does the abolition of copayment increase ambulatory care utilization?: a quasi-experimental study in Germany," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(8), pages 1319-1328, November.
    20. Juan Pablo Atal & Hanming Fang & Martin Karlsson & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "Long-Term Health Insurance: Theory Meets Evidence," PIER Working Paper Archive 20-009, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

    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:eee:hepoli:v:121:y:2017:i:2:p:119-125. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    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.