IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpb/discus/6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financing medical specialist services in the Netherlands; welfare implications of imperfect agency

Author

Listed:
  • Ed Westerhout

    (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis)

  • K. Folmer

Abstract

From 1995 onward the financing scheme for specialist care in the Netherlands has moved from a fee-for-service scheme to a lump-sum budget scheme. From 1995 onward the financing scheme for specialist care in the Netherlands has moved from a fee-for-service scheme to a lump-sum budget scheme. This paper analyses the economic and welfare effects of this policy change. The paper adopts a model that integrates demand and supply considerations and recognizes the potential roles of moral hazard and supplier-induced demand. The model is fully numerical, being estimated and calibrated upon data for the Dutch health care sector. The paper finds that the shift in financing regime has been welfare-reducing. The policy change induced medical specialists to lower the supply of health services which was already too low from a welfare point of view. This conclusion is robust to significant changes in major parameter values.

Suggested Citation

  • Ed Westerhout & K. Folmer, 2002. "Financing medical specialist services in the Netherlands; welfare implications of imperfect agency," CPB Discussion Paper 6, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/download/financing-medical-specialist-services-netherlands-welfare-implications-imperfect-agency.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randall P. Ellis & Thomas G. McGuire, 1993. "Supply-Side and Demand-Side Cost Sharing in Health Care," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 135-151, Fall.
    2. Erik Canton & Ed Westerhout, 1999. "A model for the Dutch pharmaceutical market," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(5), pages 391-402, August.
    3. Ellis, Randall P. & McGuire, Thomas G., 1990. "Optimal payment systems for health services," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 375-396, December.
    4. Ellis, Randall P. & McGuire, Thomas G., 1986. "Provider behavior under prospective reimbursement : Cost sharing and supply," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 129-151, June.
    5. Feldman, Roger & Dowd, Bryan, 1991. "A New Estimate of the Welfare Loss of Excess Health Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 297-301, March.
    6. Kees Folmer & Johnny Stevens & Frank Van Tulder & Ed Westerhout, 1997. "Towards an economic model of the Dutch health care sector," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 351-363, July.
    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. Folmer, Cees & Westerhout, Ed, 2008. "Financing medical specialist services in The Netherlands: Welfare implications of imperfect agency," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 946-958, 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. Folmer, Cees & Westerhout, Ed, 2008. "Financing medical specialist services in The Netherlands: Welfare implications of imperfect agency," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 946-958, September.
    2. Ed Westerhout & K. Folmer, 2002. "Financing medical specialist services in the Netherlands; welfare implications of imperfect agency," CPB Discussion Paper 6.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    3. Miller, Nolan, 2004. "Market Structure, Commitment, and Treatment Incentives in Health Care," Working Paper Series rwp04-007, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Jeannette Brosig‐Koch & Heike Hennig‐Schmidt & Nadja Kairies‐Schwarz & Daniel Wiesen, 2017. "The Effects of Introducing Mixed Payment Systems for Physicians: Experimental Evidence," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 243-262, February.
    5. Socha, Karolina Z. & Bech, Mickael, 2011. "Physician dual practice: A review of literature," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-7, September.
    6. Miller, Nolan H., 2006. "Insurer-provider integration, credible commitment, and managed-care backlash," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 861-876, September.
    7. Ge Ge & Geir Godager & Jian Wang, 2022. "Exploring physician agency under demand‐side cost sharing—An experimental approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 1202-1227, June.
    8. Kesteloot, K. & Voet, N., 1998. "Incentives for cooperation in quality improvement among hospitals--the impact of the reimbursement system," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 701-728, December.
    9. Victoria Barham & Olga Milliken, 2015. "Payment Mechanisms and the Composition of Physician Practices: Balancing Cost‐Containment, Access, and Quality of Care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 895-906, July.
    10. Boyd H. Gilman, 1999. "Measuring Hospital Cost‐Sharing Incentives Under Refined Prospective Payment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 433-452, September.
    11. Mark McClellan, 1997. "Hospital Reimbursement Incentives: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 91-128, March.
    12. Socha, Karolina, 2010. "Physician dual practice and the public health care provision. Review of the literature," DaCHE discussion papers 2010:4, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    13. Pierre-Thomas Léger & Erin C. Strumpf, 2010. "Système de paiement des médecins : bref de politique," CIRANO Project Reports 2010rp-12, CIRANO.
    14. Kevin E. Pflum, 2015. "Physician Incentives and Treatment Choice," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 712-751, October.
    15. Izabela Jelovac & Philippe Polomé, 2017. "Incentives to patients versus incentives to health care providers: The users' perspective," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 319-331, December.
    16. Ching‐To Albert Ma & Michael H. Riordan, 2002. "Health Insurance, Moral Hazard, and Managed Care," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 81-107, March.
    17. Kümpel, Christian & Schneider, Udo, 2020. "Additional reimbursement for outpatient physicians treating nursing home residents reduces avoidable hospital admissions: Results of a reimbursement change in Germany," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(4), pages 470-477.
    18. 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.
    19. Jasmin Kantarevic & Boris Kralj, 2016. "Physician Payment Contracts in the Presence of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection: The Theory and Its Application in Ontario," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1326-1340, October.
    20. Martin Gaynor, 1994. "Issues in the Industrial Organization of the Market for Physician Services," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 211-255, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpb:discus:6. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpbgvnl.html .

    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.