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Economic evaluation under managed competition: evidence from the U.K.

Although economic evaluation in health care has a long-standing tradition in the United Kingdom, very little is known about its impact on decision making, particularly following the introduction of the internal market. Since managed competition appears to be growing in popularity worldwide, the U.K. is an interesting case study, as the reforms are well underway and there have been a number of efforts to conduct and disseminate economic evaluations. In this paper the potential for using economic evaluation in health care decision making in the U.K. is discussed. Then its actual impact is assessed in two ways. First, two case studies are discussed, on heart transplantation and the use of pharmaceuticals in the management of labour in pregnancy. Second, new data from a recent survey of potential users of economic evaluations are presented, with the emphasis on exploring the reasons for the impact, or lack of impact, of economic results. It is concluded that the NHS reforms increase the potential for the use of economic evaluation. However, there is a need to increase decision makers' awareness of economic studies and to help them interpret study methodology and results. Although worries about validity of economic studies are one of the major barriers to their use, other important barriers relate to the multiple objectives being pursued, of which increased efficiency is just one, and the difficulties of freeing resources from existing services in order to divert them to more cost-effective treatments and programmes.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗

Re-forming medical delivery systems: economic organization and dynamics of regional planning and managed competition.

This paper compares structural components of medical delivery in two major systemwide reform strategies in the United States. Commonly portrayed in terms of opposing ideologies of planning vs. market reform, regional organization and managed competition have promoted similar structural elements and geographic configurations. They both support growth of institution-based specialized teams and hospital consolidation. They both differentiate hospital care into vertically integrated levels, and develop regions as the key production and market area for organized delivery systems. System-wide management or regulation in each has tried to control allocation of resources, capital investment, and competition. Developed in the context of large-scale industrial production, these components have inherent economic dynamics and together they shape the market structure of medical care. The final section briefly considers the locus of power in the two reform approaches and the implication for choosing mechanisms of reform. It also notes that despite their rhetoric, the two strategies do not shape their services according to information about population benefit. The conclusion points out that the commonalities in structure and power demonstrate the dominance of economic organization in medical reform and contribute to the wide acceptance of this business form of organization as an international model.

Delivery of Health Care, Integrated↗

Managed competition: origins & implications.

It seems one can't read an article or watch a newspiece about health care reform without encountering the words managed competition. Where did the concept come from? What will it mean if it is implemented? This article discusses the basics of this plan.

Competitive Medical Plans↗

Managed competition in health care and the unfinished agenda.

A market made up of health care financing and delivery plans and individual consumers, without a carefully drawn set of rules to mitigate market failures, and without mediation by collective action on the demand side, cannot produce efficiency and equity. The concept of competition that can achieve these goals, at least to a satisfactory approximation, is managed competition, with intelligent active agents on the demand side, called sponsors, that contract with the competing health care plans and continuously structure and adjust the market to overcome its tendencies to failure. A great deal remains to be done to achieve the goals envisioned by the "procompetition reformers."

Economic Competition↗

An update on Spain's health care system: is it time for managed competition?

Using national data and the most recent OECD figures, we provide an updated assessment of the Spanish health care system and its reforms. We compare figures from Spain with other major industrialized nations and find that the Spanish system appears macro-economically efficient and equitable. However, like many other countries in Europe and elsewhere, the Spanish health care system confronts continued pressures to provide high-quality universal care in the face of ever increasing costs and competing uses for financial resources. These pressures have prompted the enactment of several reforms, which are reviewed. We draw from the American experience with managed care and managed competition to illustrate possible paths for further reform.

Delivery of Health Care↗

President Clinton's managed competition proposal.

In the search for fairness of access to health care, value for the money spent, and high quality of patient care, the United States has vacillated between advocacy of government regulations (the 1970s) and of market-driven, pro-competitive (1980s) approaches. The possible enactment of President Clinton's health reform plan with a managed-care strategy (1990s) calls for paying physicians and other providers in a manner that often induces them to minimize the provision of services to patients per episode of illness. This article discusses the impact of such legislation on patients, physicians, and other providers. It then argues that the President's managed competition approach, which micromanages health-care services, will fail except by concurrently implementing his proposed National Health Board's global budgetary concept. The major reason is that health reform for the 36.6 million uninsured Americans, who are mostly the working poor and their dependents, is only practical and affordable if stringent policies are adopted that reorganize available health-care resources and simultaneously implement cost-containment constraints.

Competitive Medical Plans↗

A specialized mental health plan for persons with severe mental illness under managed competition.

Many concerns have been raised about the special problems of providing care for severely mentally ill persons in a reformed health care system based on managed competition. The authors describe what will likely be basic features of the reformed system and discuss potential problems in serving this population. The authors recommend the development of special mental health maintenance organizations (MHMOs) that would serve only persons with severe mental illness. The MHMO would emphasize case management in the community and would provide a fixed point of responsibility for clinical care of these patients. Two methods of reimbursing MHMOs are proposed. Each region's health insurance purchasing cooperative (HIPC) could reimburse the MHMO on a capitated risk-adjusted basis. Alternatively, HIPCs could require the general health plan to operate or contract for MHMOs. In each case, the HIPC would provide quality-of-care oversight and assign a team to act as a gatekeeper for referrals to the MHMO.

Competitive Medical Plans↗

Information management in the age of managed competition.

BACKGROUND: Today's information requirements differ from those of the past, in terms of both the internal and external reporting needs of health care organizations. Demands for information are currently generated by physicians, quality managers, total quality management (TQM) teams, marketing staff, financial managers, regulators, insurance plans, accreditation agencies, purchasers, coalitions, and other customers. DISCUSSION: Health care organizations respond to these demands in different ways, depending on their size and type. Six aspects of information needs that would be relevant under managed competition are analyzed: standardization, linkages among data banks, risk adjustment, comprehensive institution-based indicators and information systems, comprehensive population-based indicators and information systems, and methods for protecting confidentiality of patient records. RECOMMENDATIONS: Six recommendations to hospitals/managed care plans that decide to establish information management systems are made: set goals, set priorities, describe current system, identify external data sources, develop (a plan), and check back (reassess).

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.↗

Managed competition of alternative delivery systems.

The markets for health insurance and health care are not naturally competitive: they are susceptible to many forms of market failure. Health plans and consumers may use strategies that lead to inequity and inefficiency. But experience with successful models of competition suggests that tools are available to enable sponsors (active collective agents on the demand side who contract with health plans to structure and manage competition) to use competition to achieve a reasonable degree of efficiency and equity for their sponsored populations. All this implies a more complex, dynamic, and sophisticated view of competition than one usually finds in apologia for free markets. A free market is not possible in health insurance.

Community Participation↗

The challenge of managed care and managed competition.

Payment for health care in the United States changed rapidly during the 1980s, with the changes often identified by three-letter acronyms such as HMO, PPO, DRG, and RVS (health maintenance organization, preferred provider organization, diagnosis-related group, and relative value system). Changes are likely to be even more rapid and fundamental in the next few years. "Managed care" and "managed competition" are the principal terms being used to describe these pending changes. In this paper, we briefly present the problems that have led to changes, the changes that have occurred, the changes likely in the future, the implications of these changes for radiologists, and how radiologists can respond most effectively. We concentrate on the implications of changes for radiologists and on how radiologists can respond effectively.

Competitive Medical Plans↗

Managing competition in the health care industry.

Health-care decisions made by consumers are generally not made by informed choice. Hospitals, expanding their market beyond physician referrals, are discovering that consumers are interested in taking a more active role. Managed-competition programs may be one of the first concepts to fine-tune a new broad-based health-care system.

Commerce↗

Medical technology meets managed competition.

Medical technology is an integral part of health care, not an expensive add-on or afterthought. Therefore, technology policy must be consistent with the approach to health care reform. Our present market has failed to generate adequate information on new technologies and perverse economic incentives have led to overutilization. In managed competition, health plans, not government, are best suited to make most technology decisions. The federal government can provide a safety valve for specific coverage decisions and can facilitate the acquisition, evaluation, and dissemination of information on new technologies.

Community Participation↗

The rest of the spectrum: alternatives to managed competition.

In the November-December 1993 and January 1994 issues of Physician Executive, Kevin Fickenscher, MD, and David A. Kindig, MD, PhD, described the Clinton health reform plan and the Senate Republican Task Force proposals. At either end of the political spectrum are other proposals that are options to the managed competition model. This entry in the column is the last in a series that outlines the major proposals pending before Congress. It and the others are intended to highlight the major elements of the proposals, not their details. "A Matter of Policy" is jointly edited by Drs. Fickenscher and Kindig of the College's Forum on Health Policy.

Health Care Reform↗

Estimating health expenditure growth under managed competition. Science, simulations, and scenarios.

The estimated impact of health system reform proposals on health expenditures influences the health system reform debate. Health expenditure growth rate (HEGR) estimates are particularly critical because small differences in rates over time create large differences in health expenditures. There currently is no hard scientific basis for estimating the impact of managed care/managed competition legislation and market developments on the HEGR. For the 1994 health system reform debate, the two leading nonpartisan modelers developed qualitative scenarios about future health system developments in which managed care/managed competition would have little or no impact on the HEGR. We conclude that there are alternative plausible scenarios, based on current health system changes interacting with potential legislation, in which managed care/managed competition will substantially lower the HEGR. We recommend that simulation models should provide a range of estimates that better reflect both market trends and the profound uncertainty about the effects of health system reform.

Competitive Medical Plans↗