IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jrisks/v11y2023i12p216-d1298799.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer Preferences for Health Services Offered by Health Insurance Companies in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Schilling

    (Department of Health Services Research, CAPHRI, Maastricht University Medical Center, Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 Maastricht, The Netherlands
    Deloitte Consulting GmbH, 40476 Düsseldorf, Germany)

  • Milena Pavlova

    (Department of Health Services Research, CAPHRI, Maastricht University Medical Center, Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 Maastricht, The Netherlands)

  • Andrea Karaman

    (Deloitte Consulting GmbH, 40476 Düsseldorf, Germany)

Abstract

German health insurance companies increasingly strive to position themselves as health partners to their customers to improve customers’ health and contain costs. However, there is uncertainty about customers’ preferences for health services offered by health insurance companies. Therefore, this paper studies consumer preferences for health services that are or could be provided by health insurance companies in Germany. An online survey was conducted using two stated preference techniques to collect and analyze the data (namely, rating and ranking of health services considered by insurance companies). A sample of 880 German health insurance customers between 18 and 65 years old filled out the online questionnaire, of which 860 submitted complete responses. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was used for the rating and ranking. Preliminary examinations, care management, and health programs were the three health services most important to the respondents. The results suggest that people want their health insurance to support them with preventive health services that offer direct therapeutic value and not just informational, economic, access-related, or convenience-related benefits. These preferences for health services are homogeneous for most subgroups of the population, implying that health insurance companies could consider an overall strategy to address these preferences for all clients by focusing on the important health services.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Schilling & Milena Pavlova & Andrea Karaman, 2023. "Consumer Preferences for Health Services Offered by Health Insurance Companies in Germany," Risks, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-27, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:11:y:2023:i:12:p:216-:d:1298799
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/11/12/216/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/11/12/216/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abel, Thomas, 1991. "Measuring health lifestyles in a comparative analysis: Theoretical issues and empirical findings," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 899-908, January.
    2. D. Wade Hands, 2010. "Economics, psychology and the history of consumer choice theory," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 34(4), pages 633-648.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Toni Meier & Karolin Senftleben & Peter Deumelandt & Olaf Christen & Katja Riedel & Martin Langer, 2015. "Healthcare Costs Associated with an Adequate Intake of Sugars, Salt and Saturated Fat in Germany: A Health Econometrical Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-21, September.
    5. Cam Donaldson & Phil Shackley & Mona Abdalla, 1997. "Using Willingness To Pay To Value Close Substitutes: Carrier Screening for Cystic Fibrosis Revisited," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(2), pages 145-159, March.
    6. Stephanie Stock & Björn Stollenwerk & Gabriele Klever-Deichert & Marcus Redaelli & Guido Büscher & Christian Graf & Klaus Möhlendick & Jan Mai & Andreas Gerber & Markus Lüngen & Karl Lauterbach, 2008. "Preliminary analysis of short term financial implications of a prevention bonus program: First results from the German statutory health insurance," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 53(2), pages 78-86, April.
    7. Taciano L. Milfont, 2009. "The effects of social desirability on self-reported environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 263-269, September.
    8. Sen, Amartya, 1993. "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 495-521, May.
    9. Office of Health Economics, 2007. "The Economics of Health Care," For School 001490, Office of Health Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Julia M. Puaschunder, 2023. "Behavioral Economics for All: From Nudging to Leadership," RAIS Conference Proceedings 2022-2024 0293, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    2. Yan, Xiaoming & Zhao, Wenhan & Yu, Yugang, 2022. "Optimal product line design with reference price effects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(3), pages 1045-1062.
    3. Powdthavee, Nattavudh & van den Berg, Bernard, 2011. "Putting different price tags on the same health condition: Re-evaluating the well-being valuation approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1032-1043.
    4. Alexandre Truc & Dorian Jullien, 2023. "A controversy about modeling practices: the case of inequity aversion," Post-Print hal-04719263, HAL.
    5. Pessali, Huascar & Berger, Bruno, 2010. "A teoria da perspectiva e as mudanças de preferência no mainstream: um prospecto lakatoseano [Prospect theory and preference change in the mainstream of economics: a Lakatosian prospect]," MPRA Paper 26104, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Paul Dolan & Daniel Kahneman, 2008. "Interpretations Of Utility And Their Implications For The Valuation Of Health," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 215-234, January.
    7. Robin Maialeh, 2019. "Generalization of results and neoclassical rationality: unresolved controversies of behavioural economics methodology," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1743-1761, July.
    8. Holzmeister, Felix & Stefan, Matthias, 2019. "The Risk Elicitation Puzzle Revisited: Across-Methods (In)consistency?," OSF Preprints pj9u2, Center for Open Science.
    9. Whynes, David K. & Sach, Tracey H., 2007. "WTP and WTA: Do people think differently?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 946-957, September.
    10. Drakopoulos, Stavros A. & Katselidis, Ioannis, 2017. "The Relationship between Psychology and Economics: Insights from the History of Economic Thought," MPRA Paper 77485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Meg Perry-Duxbury & Job Exel & Werner Brouwer, 2019. "How to value safety in economic evaluations in health care? A review of applications in different sectors," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(7), pages 1041-1061, September.
    12. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2019. "What are axiomatizations good for?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 339-359, May.
    13. Julia Koch & Britta Frommeyer & Gerhard Schewe, 2020. "Online Shopping Motives during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Lessons from the Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    14. Alexandre Truc & Dorian Jullien, 2023. "A controversy about modeling practices: the case of inequity aversion," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04719263, HAL.
    15. Fernando San Miguel & Mandy Ryan & Mabelle Amaya‐Amaya, 2005. "‘Irrational’ stated preferences: a quantitative and qualitative investigation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 307-322, March.
    16. van Winssen, K.P.M. & van Kleef, R.C. & van de Ven, W.P.M.M., 2015. "How profitable is a voluntary deductible in health insurance for the consumer?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(5), pages 688-695.
    17. Wang, Jian & Iversen, Tor & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Godager, Geir, 2020. "Are patient-regarding preferences stable? Evidence from a laboratory experiment with physicians and medical students from different countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    18. Whynes, David K. & Frew, Emma & Wolstenholme, Jane L., 2003. "A comparison of two methods for eliciting contingent valuations of colorectal cancer screening," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 555-574, July.
    19. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2021. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 593-616, June.
    20. Cam Donaldson & Helen Mason & Phil Shackley, 2012. "Contingent Valuation in Health Care," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 40, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    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:gam:jrisks:v:11:y:2023:i:12:p:216-:d:1298799. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.