This issue of the International Journal of Healthcare Finance and Economics features eight
articles evaluating different provider payment methods in comparative international perspective, with authors from Hungary, China, Thailand, the US, Switzerland, and Canada. These contributions illustrate how the array of incentives facing providers shapes their interpersonal, clinical, administrative, and investment decisions in ways that profoundly impact the performance of health care systems. Taken as a whole, the articles show that in addition to the specifics of the reimbursement or remuneration scheme for individual providers and provider organizations, other factors matter—including ownership, allocation of control rights (such as in public-private partnerships), and expectation of a bail-out (soft budget constraints). All of these facets of payment and accountability systems shape the quality and efficiency of service delivery.

Given an increasingly complex web of financial pressures on providers, studies have examined how hospitals’ overall financial health affects different aspects of hospital operations. In our study, we develop an empirical proxy for the concept of soft budget constraint (SBC, Kornai, Kyklos 39:3–30, 1986) as an alternative financialmeasure of a hospital’s overall financial health and offer an initial estimate of the effect of SBCs on hospital access and quality. An organization has a SBC if it can expect to be bailed out rather than shut down. Our conceptual model predicts that hospitals facing softer budget constraints will be associated with less aggressive cost control, and their quality may be better or worse, depending on the scope for damage to quality from noncontractible aspects of cost control. We find that hospitals with softer budget constraints are less likely to shut down safety net services. In addition, hospitals with softer budget constraints appear to have better mortality outcomes for elderly heart attack patients.

Using data from 276 general acute hospitals in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong Province from 2002 and 2004, we construct a preliminary metric of budget constraint softness. We find that, controlling for hospital size, ownership, and other factors, a Chinese hospital’s probability of receiving government financial support is inversely associated with the hospital’s previous net revenue, an association consistent with soft budget constraints.

Background.  The net value of increased health care spending remains unclear, especially for chronic diseases.

Objective. To assess value for money spent on medical care for patients with type 2 diabetes, using a “cost-of-living” approach.

Setting. Mayo Clinic Rochester, a not-for-profit integrated health care delivery system. 

Patients. 613 patients with type 2 diabetes: 36 diagnosed before 1985; 186 in 1985-96; 181 in 1997-99; and 210 in 2000-02.

Design. We compare the increase in inflation-adjusted annual health care spending with the value of changes in health status between 1997 and 2005.

Measurements. Measures of health status are (1) cardiovascular risk based on the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) equations, holding age and diabetes duration constant (“modifiable risk”); and (2) simulated outcomes for all diabetes complications using the UKPDS Outcomes Model. The present discounted value of improved survival and avoided treatment spending for coronary heart disease (CHD), net of the increase in annual spending per patient, yields net value.

Results. We estimate a total value of $20,824 per patient for quality improvement ($17,392 from reduction in modifiable risk of fatal CHD and fatal stroke, $3,432 from avoided CHD treatment spending), and a value net of cost of $10,911 per patient (95% confidence interval -$8,480, $33,402). A second approach to assessing value, using the UKPDS Outcomes Model, yields a net value of $6,931 per patient.

Conclusions. Our estimates of net value are positive, indicating that value for money has improved, although confidence intervals bracket zero. The increase in spending thus appears “worth it” on average, but there remains considerable room for enhancing value for money in care for patients with diabetes.

China continues to face great challenges in meeting the health needs of its large population. The challenges are not just lack of resources, but also how to use existing resources more efficiently, more effectively, and more equitably. Now a major unaddressed challenge facing China is how to reform an inefficient, poorly organized health care delivery system. The objective of this study is to analyze the role of private health care provision in China and discuss the implications of increasing private-sector development for improving health system performance.

This study is based on an extensive literature review, the purpose of which was to identify, summarize, and evaluate ideas and information on private health care provision in China. In addition, the study uses secondary data analysis and the results of previous study by the authors to highlight the current situation of private health care provision in one province of China.

This study found that government-owned hospitals form the backbone of the health care system and also account for most health care service provision. However, even though the public health care system is constantly trying to adapt to population needs and improve its performance, there are many problems in the system, such as limited access, low efficiency, poor quality, cost inflation, and low patient satisfaction. Currently, private hospitals are relatively rare, and private health care as an important component of the health care system in China has received little policy attention. It is argued that policymakers in China should recognize the role of private health care provision for health system performance, and then define and achieve an appropriate role for private health care provision in helping to respond to the many challenges facing the health system in present-day China.

We examine the role that buyers in global supply chains play in helping vendors uncover productivity-enhancing labor management innovations. We report on a buyer-directed NGO-coordinated factory-based program targeting intestinal parasites and anemia in seven Bangalore apparel factories. Raw pre-post productivity comparisons were confounded by factory organizational changes that were implemented in anticipation of the termination of the Multi Fiber Arrangement (MFA). Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) estimator, a full complement of medically appropriate treatment was found to increase individual productivity.

Using data from 276 general acute hospitals in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong Province from 2002 and 2004, we construct a preliminary metric of budget constraint softness. We find that, controlling for hospital size, ownership, and other factors, a Chinese hospital’s probability of receiving government financial support is inversely associated with the hospital’s previous net revenue, an association consistent with soft budget constraints.

Published inInternational Journal of Healthcare Finance and Economics special issue on provider payment incentivesKaren Eggleston, Yu-Chu Shen, Mingshan Lu, Congdong Li, Jian Wang, Zhe Yang, 2009. “Soft Budget Constraints in China: Evidence from the Guangdong Hospital Industry,” International Journal of Healthcare Finance and Economics 9(2): 233-42.

Government and private roles in health service delivery remain controversial in China, as in many countries.  Using 2004 data from over 360 government-owned and private hospitals in Guangdong Province, we find that non-government hospitals serve an overlapping but distinct market.  They are smaller, newer market entrants, more likely to specialize, and less likely to be included in urban social insurance networks. We also document differences in staffing and financial performance, but no systematic ownership differences in simple measures of quality, controlling for size, location, case-mix and other confounding factors.

UPDATED VERSION PUBLISHED:
BMC Health Services Research 2010, 10:76doi:10.1186/1472-6963-10-76
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/76

Background

The literature comparing private not-for-profit, for-profit, and government providers mostly relies on empirical evidence from high-income and established market economies. Studies from developing and transitional economies remain scarce, especially regarding patient case-mix and quality of care in public and private hospitals, even though countries such as China have expanded a mixed-ownership approach to service delivery. The purpose of this study is to compare the operations and performance of public and private hospitals in Guangdong Province, China, focusing on differences in patient case-mix and quality of care.

Methods

We analyze survey data collected from 362 government-owned and private hospitals in Guangdong Province in 2005, combining mandatorily reported administrative data with a survey instrument designed for this study. We use univariate and multi-variate regression analyses to compare hospital characteristics and to identify factors associated with simple measures of structural quality and patient outcomes.

Results

Compared to private hospitals, government hospitals have a higher average value of total assets, more pieces of expensive medical equipment, more employees, and more physicians (controlling for hospital beds, urban location, insurance network, and university affiliation). Government and for-profit private hospitals do not statistically differ in total staffing, although for-profits have proportionally more support staff and fewer medical professionals. Mortality rates for non-government non-profit and for-profit hospitals do not statistically differ from those of government hospitals of similar size, accreditation level, and patient mix.

Conclusions

In combination with other evidence on health service delivery in China, our results suggest that changes in ownership type alone are unlikely to dramatically improve or harm overall quality. System incentives need to be designed to reward desired hospital performance and protect vulnerable patients, regardless of hospital ownership type.

Published: Eggleston, Karen, et al. "Comparing public and private hospitals in China: evidence from Guangdong." BMC Health Services Research 10.1 (2010): 1.

When both physicians and pharmacists in Taiwan prescribed and dispensed drugs, many elderly people considered the two types of health care providers more or less synonymous (i.e., close substitutes). Two policies mandated in the 1990s changed this perception: National Health Insurance (NHI), which provides insurance coverage to all citizens, and a separation policy (SP) that forbids physicians from dispensing and pharmacists from prescribing drugs. The author finds that by providing an economic incentive to the previously uninsured elderly, NHI raised the probability that they would visit physicians, relative to their continuously insured counterparts. In particular, some previously uninsured elderly who once only visited pharmacists were more likely to also visit physicians after NHI was implemented. Following this, the SP made it more likely that all elderly patients would only visit physicians and buy drugs from on-site pharmacists hired by physicians—a result different than its policy goal.

Published: Chang, Kang-Hung. "The healer or the druggist: effects of two health care policies in Taiwan on elderly patients’ choice between physician and pharmacist services." International journal of health care finance and economics 9.2 (2009): 137-152.