Financial protection in health among the middle-aged and elderly: Evidence from the Greek economic recession

Since the late 2000s, the Greek economy has entered a long period of recession, with reforms and retrenchment in health care being among the main public policy priorities. This study investigates the extent to which financial protection in health has changed among older households during the Greek crisis. We focus on the middle-aged and elderly, the heavy users of health services, who have faced a substantial health and financial burden during the crisis. Our analysis shows that the headcount and overshoot of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) substantially increased from 2007 to 2015, suggesting that financial protection has eroded to a great extent. Prior to the crisis, CHE was mainly due to inpatient care, followed by outpatient care and medicines. However, the contribution of spending for outpatient medicines to CHE substantially increased during the study period. The headcount of CHE rose across all socioeconomic groups we examined, with low-income households and households with chronic patients being disproportionately affected. In 2007, we do not report signs of socioeconomic inequalities in the risk of CHE. On the contrary, our results show that households of low socioeconomic status are more likely to incur CHE in 2015, revealing substantial inequalities in the risk of CHE. This finding raises significant distributional and equity concerns. Strengthening financial protection among older households is an imperative challenge for the Greek health system, and several policy responses need to be adopted towards this direction.     

European hospital reforms in times of crisis: Aligning cost containment needs with plans for structural redesign?

Hospitals have become a focal point for health care reform strategies in many European countries during the current financial crisis. It has been called for both, short-term reforms to reduce costs and long-term changes to improve the performance in the long run. On the basis of a literature and document analysis this study analyses how EU member states align short-term and long-term pressures for hospital reforms in times of the financial crisis and assesses the EU's influence on the national reform agenda. The results reveal that there has been an emphasis on cost containment measures rather than embarking on structural redesign of the hospital sector and its position within the broader health care system. The EU influences hospital reform efforts through its enhanced economic framework governance which determines key aspects of the financial context for hospitals in some countries. In addition, the EU health policy agenda which increasingly addresses health system questions stimulates the process of structural hospital reforms by knowledge generation, policy advice and financial incentives. We conclude that successful reforms in such a period would arguably need to address both the organisational and financing sides to hospital care. Moreover, critical to structural reform is a widely held acknowledgement of shortfalls in the current system and belief that new models of hospital care can deliver solutions to overcome these deficits. Advancing the structural redesign of the hospital sector while pressured to contain cost in the short-term is not an easy task and only slowly emerging in Europe.     

Is there a problem with quality in the Greek hospital sector? Preliminary results from a patient satisfaction survey.

Many Greek politicians and media attribute high dissatisfaction with the public health services to the quality of public hospitals. Provoking this view, this study attempts to investigate the patient's opinion and provides some preliminary results for the level of services provided by three public hospitals. A patient satisfaction survey with a self-administered questionnaire of 1295 adult patients show high rates for medical and nursing services and fair rates for hotel services and facilities. The medical-nursing index (which can range from 0 to 100) shows a mean of 86.4 and the rate for the hotel services is 75.9. Statistical analysis shows different satisfaction rates by age and level of education, an outcome that is consistent with other similar satisfaction studies. Differences of patient satisfaction relating to the area of hospital need to be examined carefully by gathering more data from Greek hospitals. Our preliminary results demonstrate that the high dissatisfaction of the public cannot be attributed to the quality of hospital care.     

What Is the Impact of Health Reforms on Uncompensated Care in Critical Access Hospitals? A 5‐Year Forecast in Washington State

Context: The 2008 financial crisis had a far‐reaching impact on nearly every sector of the economy. As unemployment increased so did the uninsured. Already operating on a slim margin and poor payer mix, many critical access hospitals are facing a tough road ahead. Purpose: We seek to examine the increasing impact of uncompensated care on the revenues earned by Washington's critical access hospitals; to forecast uncompensated care to the year 2014; and to forecast the financial impact on rural hospital uncompensated care of HR 3590, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Findings: For critical access hospitals in the state of Washington, total uncompensated care increased by almost $16 million, a 22% increase from 2008 to 2009. By 2014, total uncompensated care is forecast to more than double from 2009, totaling $174 million annually without health reforms. Using the Urban Institute's Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model, uncompensated care is forecast to fall by $106 million in 2014, thereby reducing the uncompensated care percentage from 5.31% to 2.07%. Conclusions: Policy makers and health care managers should note that a substantial portion of the newly insured from the ACA will most likely be Medicaid participants. Given this source of lower revenue per case, critical access hospital administrators should seek additional public and private sources of revenue. Most importantly, rural hospital managers must maintain or improve their cost efficiency, while serving the needs of their rural population as we move closer toward the implementation of health reforms.     

A bed too far. The implementation of freedom of choice policy in the NHS

Freedom of hospital choice has become a popular policy among the European public health services to ensure better patient rights, reduce waiting times and improve efficiency and quality in public hospitals. The English National Health Service has recently adopted this policy. This organisation needs to introduce important reforms in order to implement this policy, in particular in the information that it provides to patients. This paper presents the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) initiative in the disclosure of information, based on patient surveys, so it can be understood by patients. Andalusia implemented a freedom of choice policy 10 years ago. This paper also studies how SAS hospitals are scored by patients and how the quality of hospitals may affect their choice. Regression analyses indicate that two hospital dimensions, a 'human dimension' and a 'facilities dimension', significantly explain how patients assess the quality of the Andalusian hospitals. Nonetheless, these two dimensions do not explain the reputation of the hospitals, a main aspect when choosing a hospital, to the same extent. The lessons provided by looking at the SAS experience may give an insightful knowledge on whether patients in England will finally opt for the best hospitals.     

广州市公立医院改革的调查分析

公立医院改革是医疗体制改革的重要内容。为了解广州市公立医院改革的状况,尤其是卫生行政管理人员、医院管理人员对公立医院改革的看法,围绕“医院已经开展的改革和取得的成效、被调查者对公立医院改革路径的选择、被调查者对医疗保障制度和政府职能在医院改革中作用的看法”等方面,采用现场一对一无记名问卷方法进行调查,并对调查结果进行了分析和讨论。     

The impact of hospital management reforms on absenteeism in Costa Rica

The reduction of high levels of absenteeism among health care workers was one the objectives of the reforms undertaken to improve public hospital performance during the 1990s in Costa Rica. This paper attempts to assess the impact of changes in reimbursement methods and organizational reform on absence rates among health care personnel in Costa Rican public hospitals for the period 1995-2001. Our results show the reforms to have had a negative impact on absenteeism, which increased throughout the considered period. Results further indicate that the policy of not substituting absentee workers, which was introduced through the reforms, did not work as expected in a permissive environment in which peer pressure mechanisms were lacking. In addition, the explicit incentives for workers included in the reforms were retained and used at facility level. There is a pressing need in the future for control and disciplinary mechanisms for health care personnel and for the introduction of absence rates as an explicit goal to be monitored and evaluated.     

What next after the ‘commercialization’ of public hospitals? Searching for effective solutions to achieve financial stability of the hospital sector in Poland

The problem of hospital indebtedness has fraught the Polish health care sector for many decades. While it is largely attributed to the shortcomings of the legal form of the independent public health care unit (SPZOZ), which is the main legal form in which public hospitals operate in Poland, analysis of hospital indebtedness shows that the problem had been apparent before this legal form was introduced in 1999. The problem also did not appear to diminish with the transformation of the SPZOZs into Commercial Code companies, which effectively started in 2011 and was recently halted. While the shortcomings of the legal forms (SPZOZ and others) in which public hospitals operated did contribute to the accumulation of debts in the hospital sector, limited public spending on health and certain reforms were also to blame. Further, repeated rounds of debt reduction financed by the state have likely instilled the conviction among the hospital directors that debts would always be cleared eventually and provided little incentive for prudent financial management. While the government has recently pledged to increase public spending on health, this alone does not guarantee to resolve the problem of hospital indebtedness. Other key changes, such as implementing rational financial management in the hospitals and shifting more care from hospitals to primary and long-term care, are also needed.     

Effects of selective contracting on hospital efficiency,costs and accessibility

This paper exploits a natural experiment in the state of California, to show that pro-competitive healthcare policy may have unintended long-term liabilities unless the system as a whole is carefully designed to preserve access to care for the poor. California's Medicaid Reform Act of 1982 increased competition among hospitals in urban areas, with legislation which allowed direction of patients to more efficient providers via selective contracting. This slowed the average rate of hospital cost inflation, and saved the state billions of dollars. The substantial short-term savings have been documented in empirical research, but little attention has been paid to the longer-term effects of the reforms. We find that Medicaid contracts were awarded to more efficient hospitals. The distributional effects post-reform resulted in efficiency gains for most hospitals, but costs escalated for over half of the public hospitals in the sample, as their uncompensated care burdens rose. Public hospitals continued to fail during the period, leaving over half of California's counties without a county hospital by 1990. Because public hospitals provide the vast majority of healthcare for the poor in California, there is reason for concern about erosion of their access to care as an unintended outcome of pro-competitive reforms. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Crisis & commitment: 150 years of service by Los Angeles county public hospitals

The Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center will open soon, replacing the county's current 74-year-old facility with a modern, although smaller, facility. Los Angeles County has provided hospital care to the indigent since 1858, during which time, the operation of public hospitals has shifted from a state-mandated welfare responsibility to a preeminent part of the county's public health mission. As this shift occurred, the financing of Los Angeles County hospitals changed from primarily county support to state and federal government sources, particularly Medicaid. The success of the new hospital will depend on whether government leaders at all levels provide the reforms needed to help the county and its partners stabilize its funding base.     

Taking the measure of the profession: Physician associations in the measurement age

Systematic measurement of healthcare services enables evaluation of health professionals' quality of work. Whereas policy makers find measurement a useful mechanism for quality improvement, a public choice perspective implies that physicians would resent such an initiative, which undermines their professional autonomy.In this article, we compare two healthcare systems of economically developed countries – Israel and the UK. Both systems share common features such as universal coverage, strong state intervention, and enthusiasm for New Public Management. In both countries, quality measurement was introduced in acute care hospitals at around the same time. However, while the UK succeeded in establishing a framework of surgical outcome measures during the 2000s, a similar initiative in Israel failed completely during the 1990s. We also refer to subsequent quality indicator efforts in Israel, in both community and hospital frameworks, that were more successful, but in a way that reinforces our central thesis.We contend that differences in reform outcomes stem from the medical profession's reaction to government's endeavors. This response, in turn, hinges on the professional organizations' relative institutional position vis-a-vis state authorities. This study constitutes a unique investigation of the medical profession's response to critical quality measurement reforms. Most importantly, it stresses the institutional position of medical associations as the primary factor in explaining cross-case variation in government's success in introducing quality measurement.     

Placing private health care: reading Ascot Hospital in the landscape of contemporary Auckland

The closing years of the 20th century were a time in New Zealand dominated by health care reforms inspired by neo-liberal ideology. The result has been changing geographies of public and private health care providers and the evolution of a new discourse of health care. Ascot Integrated Hospital, situated in the affluent Auckland suburb of Remuera, opened in 1999, reflecting and projecting this new discourse. It is a pioneer, competing for patient patronage in a contracting market for surgical and medical providers. In this paper we survey the recent history of private hospital developments in New Zealand, then more closely consider the Ascot, a hospital that has deployed language to construct itself and its achievements in the public imagination. Given the context of an extremely competitive environment for private patients, this construction glamorises medicine and links healing with a contrived place. We conclude that texts associated with the Ascot provide a useful vehicle for advancing cultural geographies of health care and ideas of the place of hospitals in western capitalist countries.     

Patient satisfaction with health services in Bangladesh

Concern over the quality of health care services in Bangladesh has led to loss of faith in public and private hospitals, low utilization of public health facilities, and increasing outflow of Bangladeshi patients to hospitals in neighbouring countries. Under the circumstances, assessment of the country's quality of health care service has become imperative, in which the patient's voice must begin to play a greater role. This study attempts to identify the determinants of patient satisfaction with public, private and foreign hospitals. A survey was conducted involving inpatients in public and private hospitals in Dhaka City and patients who have experienced hospital services in a foreign country. Their views were obtained through exit polls using probability and non-probability (for foreign hospital patients) sampling procedures. Regression models were derived to identify key factors influencing patient satisfaction in the different types of hospitals. Doctors' service orientation, a composite of 13 measures, is the most important factor explaining patient satisfaction. Policy implications are discussed.     

Health care reform and changes in nursing practice in philanthropic hospitals in Ribeir?o Preto (SP), Brazil]

This paper describes part of a multicenter study sponsored by the Pan American Health Organization to assess health care reforms and their implications for nursing in several countries. The objective of this research was to learn the views of nurses working in philanthropic hospitals in Ribeir?o Preto, in the state of S?o Paulo, Brazil, regarding the changes in nursing practice coming from Brazil's health care reform and implementation of the Unified Health System (UHS). Data were obtained through structured interviews with seven nurses who met the selection criteria, from the three philanthropic hospitals in Ribeir?o Preto. The nurses reported a decline in the quality of care and in the number of beds for UHS patients. The nurses reported that UHS implementation initially led to infrastructure improvements in the philanthropic hospitals. However, the reforms eventually shifted toward improving the care of private and privately insured patients. In addition, the nurses emphasized their heavy work loads and low pay. The nurses' reports indicated that Brazil's UHS is going through a crisis. In general, the nurses linked this crisis to problems in funding and allocation of resources.     

Is the corporate transformation of hospitals creating a new hybrid health care space? A case study of the impact of co-location of public and private hospitals in Australia

A common feature of health reforms in western nations has been the transformation or (re)construction of health and health care as both a commodity and product. In the hospital sector, this transformation has become increasingly evident in the growth of for-profit involvement in service delivery. Investor-owned hospitals are now prominent providers of hospital care in Australia. This paper examines the changing nature of health care space through the changing portrayal and meaning of hospitals as represented by and encoded in the built environment. Public hospitals once occupied 'pride of place'. In contrast, up to the early 1980s, the private sector was seen as a cottage industry. However, increased levels of state subsidisation and government incentives and pro-market policies, combined with market-based opportunities for profit generation, have seen the emergence of large private hospital chains with a new corporate image to hospital care and the blurring of 'public' and 'private'. A significant factor in the reconstruction of hospital space in Australia has been the co-location of private and public hospitals. Co-location is a popular strategy proffered by State governments and one that has been quickly acted on by corporate providers. Using Mayne Health Ltd, Australia's largest for-profit hospital chain, and four specific case studies, this paper explores four variants of co-location. Each of these examples represent a different public and private hospital space. The growth of for-profit hospital chains signifies a new phase in the delivery of health care in Australia but also importantly the creation of a new hybridised 'health care' space. This space is neither private nor public but a reflection of the economic, political and social processes underlying this transformation.     

推进优质护理 提升护理质量——特邀策划顾问

护理改革是公立医院改革的一个缩影,是评价公立医院改革成功与否的重要标尺。自2010年初卫生部推行“优质护理服务示范工程”活动以来,护理服务质量有了显著提高。开展优质护理不仅是提升护理服务的良好契机,更是解决制约护理服务改进的管理机制、激励机制等方面问题的重大突破。通过开展优质护理,改革护理工作模式,全面落实责任制整体护理;加强服务内涵建设,改善患者服务体验;     

Impact of Medicare's prospective payment system and the farm crisis on the health care of the elderly: a case study.

The spectrum of health care for the rural elderly has been negatively affected by recent changes in Medicare reimbursement policies and by the farm crisis. This case study examined the effects of these changes on the ability of rural hospitals, the aging network, and care-givers to provide adequate and continuous care to the elderly. In this case study, three gaps in services were found: a lack of programs designed to meet the needs of terminally ill patients and their families; a lack of education during the crucial transitional period between hospital discharge and home; and a lack of services and programs for the chronically-ill older adult. More studies are needed to determine if similar service gaps will be found in other rural communities. If so, public attention should be focused on possible solutions.     

The impacts of private hospital entry on the public market for elective care in England

This paper examines reforms that enabled private hospitals to compete with public hospitals for elective patients in England. Studying hip replacements, we compare changes in outcomes across areas differentially exposed to private hospital entry, instrumenting hospital entry with the pre-reform location of private hospitals. We find private hospital entry increased the number of publicly funded hip replacements by 12% but did not reduce volumes at incumbent public hospitals, and had no impact on readmission rates. This suggests new entrants exerted little competitive pressure on incumbents. Instead, the market expanded with more marginal patients receiving treatment at an earlier point in time, resulting in a fall in average patient severity. Additional publicly funded volumes were not associated with reduced privately funded volumes, while impacts of provider entry did not vary by local deprivation. These findings indicate the reform increased publicly funded capacity but did not improve quality at existing public hospitals.     

Informal payments in public hospitals in Greece

Informal payments are an ingrained social institution in Greece. In some cases, they are also part of corruption in the health area, which includes a variety of other forms. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to measure and analyze the size and nature of informal payments in the Greek public hospitals, concentrating on payments made to health personnel to facilitate access to services and preferred providers. METHODS: We used a randomized countrywide sample of 1616 households, amounting to 4738 individuals. The survey methodology was telephone interviews with a questionnaire supported by the software of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing. RESULTS: Out of the total number of those reporting treatment in public hospitals (N=336), 36% reported at least one informal payment to a doctor. Of these, 42% reported it was given because of the fear of receiving sub-standard care (if they did not pay) and another 20% claimed that the doctor demanded such a payment. None of the socio-economic characteristics of the family were related to the size of extra (informal) payments. The probability of extra payments is 72% higher for patients aiming to "jump the queue", compared to those admitted through normal procedures. Also, surgical cases had a 137% higher probability for extra payments compared to non-surgical patients. CONCLUSIONS: A very high percentage of informal payments are made in order to gain access to public hospitals and to receive a higher quality of services. Despite near universal coverage of the population by public health insurance, informal payments are widespread and a major source of inequity and inefficiency in the Greek health care system.     

Public‐private partnerships in non‐profit hospitals: Case study of China

The gap between supply and demand for health care services is expanding rapidly in China. In order to resolve this problem, the government has implemented supply‐side reforms in the health care sector by inviting private capital to increase supply quantity and improve quality. However, health care institutions have high complexity and particular needs, while non‐profit hospitals have very strong public interests. This gives rise to complications in the implementation of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) for health care services. In this paper, the authors have selected one case each from three different models of non‐profit hospital PPP projects in the national PPP project database, operated by the Ministry of Finance, and compared how these projects were operated to identify the differences among them. A content analysis of the vital project documents is the primary analysis technique used for this comparison. Key issues investigated include reasons for model selection, requirements for private sectors and market competition level in different models, risk identification and sharing, design of payment mechanism, operation supervision, and performance appraisal of the project. Based on the comparison, some key lessons and recommendations are discussed to act as a useful reference for future non‐profit hospital PPP projects in China.