Tuesday, July 22, 2008

[EQ] Impact of Private Health Insurance on the Choice of Public versus Private Hospital Services

Impact of Private Health Insurance on the Choice of Public versus Private Hospital Services

 

Preety Srivastava, Xueyan Zhao, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

HEDG Working Paper 08/17 -ISSN 1751-1976 - July 2008

The Health Economics Resource Centre (HERC) - University of York.

 

Available online PDF [41p.] at: http://www.york.ac.uk/res/herc/documents/wp/08_17.pdf

 

“……The Australian health system is characterised by a mix of public and private service and private health insurance is used in addition to a compulsory universal public insurance to finance health services. A series of reforms have been implemented over the years in order to expand the private sector with the objective to relieve the overburdened public health care system. While private coverage has expanded, a large proportion of the privately insured still opt for public treatment in hospitals.

 

The objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of individuals’ choice between public and private hospital services, in particular, the impact of private health insurance status. It estimates a recursive trivariate probit system model with partial observability that allows for endogeneity of private insurance participation and potential selection bias as we only observe individuals’ public/private choices for those who have visited a hospital in the past 12 months.

 

Relative to the prevailing two-step estimation for sample selection or endogenous treatment, our full information maximum likelihood (FIML) approach is both consistent and efficient. The study identifies private health insurance status and income as important determinants of private hospital care utilisation. An individual with a private hospital cover has nearly 70 per cent higher chance to opt for private treatment in a hospital and a person within the tenth income decile group has 46 per cent higher probability to seek private hospital care than someone who falls in the third or lower income decile groups. To some extent other factors such as perceived quality of care in the public sector and cost of access are also found to have some impact on the use of private hospital care….”

 

 

 

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This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate 
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic 
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics; 
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KM
S Area] 

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[EQ] Congress on Health Sciences Information (CRICS 8) Scientific information and knowledge for innovation in health

8th Regional Congress on Health Sciences Information (CRICS 8)

16-19 September 2008 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Website:
http://www.crics8.org/php/index.php?lang=en

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) and the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME/PAHO/WHO)

The main theme of the CRICS8 – Scientific information and knowledge for innovation in health, will approach the critical function the information and the scientific knowledge play in the processes of generation, adoption, and adaptation of innovations in the social and economic development, particularly in health systems and services.

The information and knowledge sources and flows that are produced and operated by means of products, services, and events of information and communication comprise the fabric that unites, sustains and systematically innovates the relationships, policies, programs and practices of the instances of promotion, research, technology, industry and the health systems and services in favor of the social inclusion and of the equity.

The thematic tracks of CRICS 8 are:

- Policies and programs for information and scientific communication;
- Knowledge dissemination, social inclusion and democracy;
- Information, communication and scientific evidence for competence development;
- State-of-the-art of Scientific Communication;
- Information, knowledge and health institutions management;
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and convergences;
- Health scientific knowledge for social development.

Scientific Program – Panels

The scientific program of CRICS8 is organized by panels that will address the state of  art in a specific subject, with the participation of three specialists and the public.   One of the specialists will coordinate the panel and the others will present conferences with two critical visions of the subject

17 September, 2008

Panel 1- Challenges for the insertion of the developing countries in the global flow of scientific and technical information considering the health  globalization
Panel 2 - The contribution of the information and knowledge in the processes of health sector reform in Latin America and the Caribbean
Panel 3 - Social Determinants:   the challenges for the information and knowledge  networks
Panel 4 - Open access and information literacy (ALFIN):   a binomial of rights


18 September, 2008

Panel 5 - The management of information and knowledge in the research, education, and health care systems:   new mediations, structures, models
Panel 6 - The role of the information and knowledge in the technological innovation systems
Panel 7 - The information, knowledge, and scientific evidences in the sanitary regulation
Panel 8 - Public spaces for exchange of information and knowledge

19 September, 2008 

Panel  9 -The society as an actor for innovation
Panel 10 - Interoperation of sanitary and scientific information sources
Panel 11 - Tools and platforms for social and learning networks

CRICS reflects the advances and the challenges developing countries face on the operation of information products and services through cooperative networks that involve hundreds of institutions, including the Virtual Health Library (VHL), the Scientific Information Electronic Library Online (SciELO), the International Network of Information and Knowledge Sources for Science, Technology and Innovation Management (ScienTI), the Virtual Campus of Public Health (CVSP), the Global Health Library (GHL), TropIKA.net , EVIPNet, and the ePORTUGUESe networks.

 

 

*      *      *     *

This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KMS Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO Website: http://www.paho.org/
Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html

 

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.