The effect of hospital ownership conversions on nonacute care providers

Since 1985, the proportion of for‐profit community hospitals has hovered around 15 percent ( AHA 1988, 2002 ). Although nonprofit hospital conversions to for‐profit status have yet to significantly alter the overall distribution of investor ownership in the hospital sector, the consequences continue to cause considerable concern ( Claxton et al. 1997 ; Cutler 2000 ). This is true primarily because investor ownership imposes new fiduciary responsibilities that may undermine a hospital's implicit social contract to meet the needs of the community it serves, regardless of profitability. Given this, many worry that for‐profit health institutions will harm local communities, particularly the availability of services for uninsured and underinsured populations. Thus, much attention has focused on the impact of ownership change on a hospital's provision of uncompensated care and other unprofitable but socially valuable services.     

Capital planning and the private finance initiative: Cost minimization or health care planning?

This paper looks at the process of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) planning in the UK National Health Service, and addresses the extent to which it ensures the adequacy of service provision. The Private Finance Initiative is intended not only to substitute private for public financing of healthcare facilities, but also to produce efficiencies in the operation of these healthcare services through the introduction of innovatory private sector practices. The paper contrasts the traditional capital-planning process within the health service, which was based on estimates of service need, with the PFI planning framework, which is finance led. PFI planning also has to be seen in the context of other organizational and financial reforms within the health service which have increased the pressures on health trusts to operate like commercial businesses and to rationalize service provision to meet financial targets. Drawing on a series of interviews and documentary sources, the paper shows how these pressures, coupled with the tendency of PFI to increase capital costs, have led to drastic actual and planned cuts in services not only in the facilities directly affected by a particular PFI but also in other areas of local healthcare provision which have not been justified by detailed analysis of projected healthcare needs.     

Firearm ownership and health care workers.

OBJECTIVE. Health professionals have increasingly become aware of the public health hazards caused by firearms. This study was designed to determine the firearm ownership and storage practices of a group of health care workers. METHODS. All 6436 nonphysician employees of a large health maintenance organization were surveyed as part of an ongoing effort to enhance the organization''s effectiveness. Two questions regarding firearm ownership and storage practices were included in the 85-question survey instrument. A total of 4999 surveys were returned, for a response rate of 78%. RESULTS. Forty-two percent of the health workers surveyed reported keeping a firearm in their home, and 35% of firearm owners stored that firearm loaded. Men were more likely than women to report having a firearm in the home. Firearm ownership and storage of a loaded firearm decreased with higher levels of education in both sexes. A measure of increased alcohol consumption was related to higher rates of firearm ownership and storage of loaded firearms in men. CONCLUSIONS. A substantial number of health care workers had firearms in their homes and did not store them safely. Counseling regarding the risks associated with easy access to firearms should be considered for inclusion in employee health programs as well as in employee assistance and alcohol treatment programs.     

Defining care products to finance health care in the Netherlands

A case-mix project started in the Netherlands with the primary goal to define a complete set of health care products for hospitals. The definition of the product structure was completed 4 years later. The results are currently being used for billing purposes. This paper focuses on the methodology and techniques that were developed and applied in order to define the casemix product structure. The central research question was how to develop a manageable product structure, i.e., a limited set of hospital products, with acceptable cost homogeneity. For this purpose, a data warehouse with approximately 1.5 million patient records from 27 hospitals was build up over a period of 3 years. The data associated with each patient consist of a large number of a priori independent parameters describing the resource utilization in different stages of the treatment process, e.g., activities in the operating theatre, the lab and the radiology department. Because of the complexity of the database, it was necessary to apply advanced data analysis techniques. The full analyses process that starts from the database and ends up with a product definition consists of four basic analyses steps. Each of these steps has revealed interesting insights. This paper describes each step in some detail and presents the major results of each step. The result consists of 687 product groups for 24 medical specialties used for billing purposes.     

Redistributive effects of Swedish health care finance

This paper investigates the redistributive effects of the Swedish health care financing system in 1980 and 1990 for four different financial sources: county council taxes, payroll taxes, direct payments and state grants. The redistributive effects are decomposed into vertical, horizontal and ‘reranking’ segments for each of the four financial sources. The data used are based on probability samples of the Swedish population, from the Level of Living Survey (LNU) from 1981 and 1991. The paper concludes that the Swedish health care financing system is weakly progressive, although direct payments are regressive. There is some horizontal inequity and ‘reranking’, which mainly comes from the county council taxes, since those tax rates vary for each county council. The implication is that, to some extent, people with equal incomes are treated unequally. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

促进医疗卫生事业和谐发展的财政机制

中共十七大已提出“病有所医”的民生建设发展方向，中央有关部门不断推进医疗卫生改革。如何建立有效的财政机制，促进中国医疗卫生事业的持续发展，是构建中国社会主义和谐社会的一项关键内容。本文认为，卫生事业、财政发展与构建和谐社会有着密不可分的联系，促进医疗卫生事业和谐发展的公共财政机制包括：“健康改善机制”、“提高医疗卫生服务的需求机制”以及“公共卫生资源有效形成与配置机制”。     

The impact of ownership on health care services in HMOs

Tests the theory that owners (hospital, physician, insurance) of vertically integrated health maintenance organizations (HMOs) might substitute towards production of their own specialty goods. Uses data from various sources in the USA. Determines the impact of ownership on factors such as average physician ambulatory services per enrollee and average hospital days per enrollee. Concludes that policymakers need to encourage the development of standard publicly available quality measures to intensify competition and eliminate excess profits accruing to provider-owners who substitute towards production of their own goods.     

Capital structure strategy in health care systems

The capital structures (the relative use of debt and equity to support assets) of leading health care systems are viewed as a strategic component of their financial plans. While not-for-profit hospitals as a group have maintained nearly constant levels of debt over the past decade, investor-owned hospitals and a group of leading health care systems have reduced their relative use of debt. Chief financial officers indicated that in addition to reducing debt because of less favorable reimbursement incentives, there was a focus on maintaining high bond ratings. Debt levels have not been reduced as sharply in these health care systems as they have in investor-owned hospitals, in part due to the use of debt to support investments in financial markets. Because these health care systems do not have easy access to equity, high bond ratings and solid investment earnings are central to their capital structure policies of preserving access to debt markets.     

Capital investment strategies in health care systems

Capital investment decisions are among the most important decisions made by firms. They determine the firm's capacity for providing services and commit the firm's cash for an extended period of time. Interviews with chief financial officers of leading health care systems reveal capital investment strategies that generally follow the recommendations of modern finance theory. Still, there is substantial variation in capital budgeting techniques, methods of risk adjustment, and the importance of qualitative considerations in investment decision making. There is also variation in delegation of investment decision making to operating units and methods of performance evaluation. Health care systems face the same challenges as other organizations in developing and implementing capital investment strategies that use consistent methods for evaluation of projects that have inconsistent aims and outcomes.     

Equity in the finance of health care: some international comparisons

This paper presents the results of a ten-country comparative study of health care financing systems and their progressivity characteristics. It distinguishes between the tax-financed systems of Denmark, Portugal and the U.K., the social insurance systems of France, the Netherlands and Spain, and the predominantly private systems of Switzerland and the U.S. It concludes that tax-financed systems tend to be proportional or mildly progressive, that social insurance systems are regressive and that private systems are even more regressive. Out-of-pocket payments are in most countries an especially regressive means of raising health care revenues.     

Uncompensated care and hospital conversions in Florida.

Hospital conversions to for-profit ownership have prompted concern about continuing access to care for the poor or uninsured. This DataWatch presents an analysis of the rate of uncompensated care provided by Florida hospitals before and after converting to for-profit ownership. Uncompensated care declined greatly in the converting public hospitals, which had a significant commitment to uncompensated care before conversion. Among converting nonprofit hospitals, uncompensated care levels were low before conversion and did not change following conversion. The study suggests that policymakers should assess the risk entailed in a conversion by considering the hospital's historic mission and its current role in the community.     

The redistributive effect of health care finance in twelve OECD countries.

The OECD countries finance their health care through a mixture of taxes, social insurance contributions, private insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments. The various payment sources have very different implications for both vertical and horizontal equity and on redistributive effect which is a function of both. This paper presents results on the income redistribution consequences of the health care financing mixes adopted in twelve OECD countries by decomposing the overall income redistributive effect into a progressivity, horizontal inequity and reranking component. The general finding of this study is that the vertical effect is much more important than horizontal inequity and reranking in determining the overall redistributive effect but that their relative importance varies by source of payment. Public finance sources tend to have small positive redistributive effects and less differential treatment while private financing sources generally have (larger) negative redistributive effects which are to a substantial degree caused by differential treatment.     

我国农村医疗卫生存在的问题分析及财政对策构想

从政府缺位入手分析当前我国农村医疗卫生事业领域存在的问题，并就政府缺位原因进行解析，提出解决我国农村医疗卫生事业领域政府缺位问题的对策构想：供需兼顾，稳步推进我国医疗卫生体制改革；多方筹资，促进医疗卫生体制均衡发展；加大农村医疗卫生事业的财政支持力度；构建符合我国国情、促进农村医疗卫生事业发展的公共财政保障机制。     

Extensions to decomposition of the redistributive effect of health care finance

The total redistributive effect (RE) of health-care finance has been decomposed into vertical, horizontal and reranking effects. The vertical effect has been further decomposed into tax rate and tax structure effects. We extend this latter decomposition to the horizontal and reranking components of the RE. We also show how to measure the vertical, horizontal and reranking effects of each component of the redistributive system, allowing analysis of the RE of health-care finance in the context of that system. The methods are illustrated with application to the RE of health-care financing in Canada.