Patient payments and the empirical analysis of consumer demand for hospital services: An application for Bulgaria

Atanasova, Elka; Pavlova, Milena; Moutafova, Emanuela; Костадинова, Тодорка; Groot, Wim

doi:10.1556/socec.34.2012.2.8

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Consumers, who approve of fees, are more willing to pay if the fees contribute to the improvement of the quality of health services (Atanasova et al ., ). However, the distrust, toward obligatory fees indicated in our study, is due to the lack of information and transparency about what happens with these charges (who benefits from them and for what are charges used).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Patient charges for health services: the opinions of healthcare stakeholders in Bulgaria

Atanasova

Pavlova

Moutafova

et al. 2013

Int J Health Plann Mgmt

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The reforms of the Bulgarian healthcare sector have been widely discussed, both nationally and internationally. In spite of the reforms, problems with the efficiency, equity and quality in healthcare provision continue to exist in Bulgaria. Among others, the reforms included the implementation of formal patient charges for the use of healthcare services. These were established in the country in 2000. Formal patient charges are applied to all levels of medical services with the exception of emergency care. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the attitudes of Bulgarian healthcare stakeholders toward patient charges. The analysis is based on data collected in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews carried out in Bulgaria in May-June 2009. The paper concludes by recommendations for policies related to patient payments. The social sensitivity of these payments requires broad discussion before policy decisions are implemented. There is also a need of a well-thought communication strategy on the issue of patient payments by the Ministry of Health.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Patient charges for health services: the opinions of healthcare stakeholders in Bulgaria

Atanasova

Pavlova

Moutafova

et al. 2013

Int J Health Plann Mgmt

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“…The results reported in Atanasova et al . () indicate a high willingness to pay for services with good quality and quick access in Bulgaria. The lower value of traveling and waiting time to consumers can be primarily explained by the consumers' recognition that clinical quality is the essence of medical care.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preferences of Bulgarian consumers for quality, access and price attributes of healthcare services-result of a discrete choice experiment

Schoot

Pavlova

Atanasova

et al. 2015

Int J Health Plann Mgmt

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In general, Bulgarian healthcare consumers are willing to accept higher prices for the services they use, when this comes with improved quality of services. These findings comply with findings in previous studies in Bulgaria and in the region. Given the quality problems in the Bulgarian healthcare sector, our findings indicate that priority has to be given to the improvement of healthcare quality when the Bulgarian government invests in this sector. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…The importance of demand-side factors is reflected in the evaluation of preferences of health-care service users to gain insights into their motivations and the factors that determine health-related behavior. Stated-preference methods have already proven to lead to similar results as those based on revealed-preference data (Atanasova et al 2012), and choice-based methods have proven their usefulness in the elicitation of patients' preferences (Baji et al 2012), which might support sustainable health policy, especially in the new paradigm shift to patientcentered health care (McKee -Nolte 2004;Busse et al 2010). Also, the increasing emphasis on preventive health policy implies certain sacrifices by individuals with additional costs for material resources (e.g.…”

Section: Society and Economy 41 (2019)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the Marginal Willingness to Pay for the Cervical Cancer Screening Program in Croatia: A Best-Worst Scaling Approach1

Samaržija

2019

Soc Ec

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Croatia is faced with a low response to cancer-screening programs, especially the national cervical cancer screening program, which ultimately resulted in its suspension. If judged solely on the basis of revealed preferences, such a poor response would imply that the population assigns a low social value to preventive screening programs. However, the question arises as to whether revealed preferences (the population's response), in the case of the absence of response to a preventive program, provide insight into its value (utility). Therefore, the objective of this paper is to determine the value that respondents assign to different attributes of cervical screening and, in a broader sense, to decide whether the best-worst scaling (BWS) approach is appropriate for determining the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for public health programs. The MWTP for certain attributes of cervical cancer screening is derived from the results of a BWS study conducted in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Croatia. The cost function was estimated by regressing the conditional logit coefficients (level of utility) of three levels of the cost attribute on its corresponding values, that is, the hypothetical price. Because the sum of the MWTP corresponds with the market price of a gynecological examination in private practice, we conclude that the results obtained by the BWS confirm the revealed preferences (the market value of the service).

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Patient payments and the empirical analysis of consumer demand for hospital services: An application for Bulgaria

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Patient charges for health services: the opinions of healthcare stakeholders in Bulgaria

Patient charges for health services: the opinions of healthcare stakeholders in Bulgaria

Preferences of Bulgarian consumers for quality, access and price attributes of healthcare services-result of a discrete choice experiment

Determining the Marginal Willingness to Pay for the Cervical Cancer Screening Program in Croatia: A Best-Worst Scaling Approach1

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