Payment system reform for health care providers in Korea

Since its introduction in 1977, the national health insurance programme in Korea has paid health care providers on a fee-for-service basis. Regulated fee-for-service payment has resulted in an increased volume and intensity of medical care. It has also distorted the input mix of treatment because physicians have substituted more profitable and uninsured (no coverage) medical services for those with lower margins, as is evidenced by the sharp increase in the caesarean delivery rate. This paper examines two recent supply-side reforms in Korea: Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) and Resource-based Relative Value (RBRV). Since 1997, through a pilot programme covering a selected group of diseases for voluntarily participating health care institutions, the DRG-based prospective payment system has proven to be effective in containing cost with little negative effect on quality. RBRV-based payment was implemented in 2001, but led to an almost uniform increase in fees for physician services without a mechanism to control the volume and expenditure. Challenges and future issues in the reform of the payment system in Korea include the expansion of benefit coverage, quality monitoring and improvement, strategic plans to overcome the strong opposition of providers and the introduction of global budgeting.     

Future European health care: cost containment, health care reform and scientific progress in drug research

The cost of the development of a new pharmaceutical product from its conception and synthesis through to the regulatory approval process has more than quadrupled in the last 20 years. Both clinical and total development times have increased substantially. To amortize the costs incurred, the pharmaceutical industry has taken an international dimension. The incentives for pharmaceutical firms to discover and develop new drugs depend on the length of the development and regulatory review process plus the potential market size. Recent regulatory, economic and political changes may have significant implications for the future of new drug developments in Europe. The European Union industrial policy felt that there is a need for convergence in the area of pricing. It is recommended that the policy should aim to contain growth in pharmaceutical expenses by means specific to reimbursement rather than direct price controls. By encouraging doctors to prescribe and customers to use generics, competition is enhanced to bring down drug prices. More emphasis is being laid by government in educating customers to cost-awareness and cost-benefit ratios with regard to pharmaceuticals. Concerning clinical trials, European harmonization has been achieved by significant developments: the rights and integrity of the trial subjects are protected; the credibility of the data is established; and the ethical, scientific and technical quality of the trials has improved. Future European health care forecasts a whole change in the pharmaceutical business. Important issues in cost and outcome measurement should be carefully planned and considered in drug development. Due to important mergers and acquisitions, the pharmaceutical sector will consist mainly of important multinational corporations. In this way, valuable new products may be brought to the market.     

The promise of health care cost containment

Today the United States may be on the cusp of changing from a cost-unconscious health care system to one that seeks value. The consequences of adopting a value-based approach to coverage have not been well studied; however, several broad strands of the health literature suggest that spending could be reduced by as much as 30 percent without adversely affecting health.     

医疗保险、费用控制与医疗卫生体制改革

1 费用控制是医疗保险的关键所在 医疗保险中的费用控制迄今仍是一个世界性的难题。而实际上,医疗保险的发展水平取决于保险制度安排中费用控制的能力。因为,在卫生服务市场中,医疗服务的需方具有无知性与被动性的特点。所谓“无知性(less know how)”,是指医患双方的信息不对称,即患者缺乏对医疗服务质量与数量进行事先判断的知识和能力,在求医时,患者缺乏对卫生服务的提供者所提供的卫生服务质与量是否符合自己病情的准确信息。其次,患者接受治疗时不能讨价还价,其偏好与选择同在市场上选购其他物品与服务不一样,对医疗卫生服务的选择完全处于一种被动状态,很难控制卫生消费的种类与数量。加之疾病的突发性和随机性决定了卫生服务需求具有不确定性和需求缺乏弹性的特点,患者的被动地位非常明显。相反,医院和医生具有专业性和垄断性的特点。医疗服务较高的专业性使其具有法律性垄断地     

Payment reform. The lynchpin of health care reform

The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was signed into law last year includes provisions that will improve access to health care for everyone in the United States and extend insurance coverage to some 300 million people who currently do not have it. But insurance reforms and expansion of coverage are only part of the solution to the problems within our health care system.The way health care is paid for is another important element of reform.This article describes the steps we need to take to change the way we pay for health care and efforts that are underway both in the United States and Minnesota to test new payment models.     

Cost containment and health care reform: a study of the European Union

This article gives a short summary of the organisation and financing of health services of the 12 Member States of the European Union. It then describes the latest developments in cost containment in each of the countries. The third section describes the new initiatives for reform in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Finally, it gives a summary of the cost containment measures in the 12 countries, listing them under a set of headings. They are classified as budget control, alternatives to hospital care, cost sharing, influencing authorizing behaviour and limits on supply. The article shows the considerable convergence of policies which is developing. Overall budget control in some form is to be found in 8 of the countries. Where providers are paid by a number of different insurers, budgets are nevertheless applied to hospitals in three countries and in another only to public hospitals. Both Germany and France have used budgets to control other items of expenditure. Profits or the prices of drug companies are controlled in 8 countries and in one indirectly. Three have adopted reference price systems for drugs and another has taken powers to do so. Two have adopted or are moving towards provider markets.     

Beyond health care cost containment: creating collaborative arrangements among the stakeholders

The causes of escalating healthcare costs in the United States and many other industrial countries are well documented. Less evident are the structural factors that underlie the increases and their implications for the future. This paper discusses these structural factors, puts them in the context of the healthcare marketplace, and proposes a way to address them using a collaborative arrangement among all stakeholders in a healthcare system, called value-based partnering. To be successful, the effort must include not only final purchasers (such as employers or Medicare in the USA) but all stakeholders in a healthcare system. Each stakeholder must develop a value equation in terms that are meaningful to the others, and must identify opportunities for value-enhancing partnerships. The paper also identifies some of the impediments to value-based partnering and discusses ways to overcome them, including the need for senior management intervention within some stakeholder groups, and the importance of collaborative discussions among all stakeholders.     

The German health care system and health care reform

This article presents a structured survey of the German health care and health insurance system, and analyzes major developments of current German health policy. The German statutory health insurance system has been known as a system that provides all citizens with ready access to comprehensive high quality medical care at a cost the country considered socially acceptable. However, an increasing concern for rapidly rising health care expenditure led to a number of cost-containment measures since 1977. The aim was to bring the growth of health care expenditure in line with the growth of wages and salaries of the sickness fund members. The recent health care reforms of 1989 and 1993 yielded only short-term reductions of health care expenditure, with increases in the subsequent years. 'Stability of the contribution rate' is the uppermost political objective of current health care reform initiatives. Options under discussion include reductions in the benefit package and increases of patients' co-payments. The article concludes with the possible consequences of the 1997 health care reform of which the major part became effective 1 July 1997.