ECON256 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Vertical Integration, Managed Care, Investment

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Document Summary

Hospitals are the largest component of the health care system. However, hospital spending per capita has increased over time. Hospitals are financed primarily from public sources (over 90%). Long-term care sector has a larger for-profit sector than acute care sector. Long-term care financing is a mix of public, private, private insurance, and oop funding. An organizational form typical of north american hospitals in which physicians have a long- term relationship with a hospital but are neither employed by nor fully independent of the hospital. Early economic models of hospitals tended to downplay (ignore) incomplete vertical integration. Assuming a hospital functioned as a unified organization. This was was usually justified by the argument that the interests at all levels were sufficiently aligned that a hospital could be treated as a unified decision-making organization. Quantity: usually measured by the number of patients treated. Quality: usually conceptualized as intensity of servicing (i. e. , more services or more higher-tech service per patient indicated higher quality)