Are patient charges an effective policy tool? Review of theoretical and empirical evidence

• Authors: Milena Pavlova , Marzena Tambor , Godefridus G. van Merode
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Policy-makers assign various objectives to the implementation of patient charges for public health care services. These charges impose prices on health care consumption and as such, they are expected to affect the quantities of health care service demanded, and to generate revenues. The actual ability of patient charges to achieve these objectives depends to a great extent on the patient payment mechanism implemented in a country, as well as on the health care system and context-specific factors. This paper reviews and discusses the theoretical and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of patient payment policies. The paper suggests that patient charges can be a successful policy tool for controlling the pattern of health care utilisation and improving the quality of health care provision. However, an additional condition for success is the appropriateness of the design of patient charges with respect to efficiency and equity in the public health care sector

Keywords

PL

patient charges, public health policy, efficiency

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Zdrowie Publiczne i Zarządzanie
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1

Dates

published

2010

online

2010-07-01

Contributors

author

Milena Pavlova

author

Marzena Tambor

author

Godefridus G. van Merode