Health Coverage
Once upon a time Joseph Newhouse said that there are no prices in healthcare. There are some forms of administered prices, tariffs and payment systems. Unfortunately current health economists forget to read some books like "Pricing the priceless", a must read.
Now a new report by WHO and OECD insists again on prices and says:
Pricing health services is a key component in purchasing the benefits package (the covered services) within the overall financing system (Evetovits, 2019). Pricing and payment methods are important instruments in purchasing that provide incentives for health care providers to deliver quality care. A second instrument is contracting, in which the conditions for the payment of services are defined, and prices can be used as signals to providers. A third is performance monitoring. Where health care providers are rewarded based on the outcomes they achieve, these payments also must be priced correctly to provide the right incentives.Right, there are more elements in the equation than prices, but the tools for fine tunning are too open. Anyway, this report is really welcome and the cases are well described.
