Variability in healthcare treatment costs amongst nine EU countries – results from theHealthBASKET project

Busse, Reinhard; Schreyögg, Jonas; Smith, Peter

doi:10.1002/hec.1330

Cited by 85 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…38 Prices of healthcare services also vary between the countries in our sample. 39 For example, a vignette study by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows considerably higher standardized costs for stroke services in the Netherlands (€7100) in comparison with England, France and Germany's standardized costs of ~€4000. No major differences were found for the costs of total hip surgery with ~€6800 for this subset of countries.…”

Section: Variations In Volume and Pricementioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between the Scope of Essential Health Benefits and Statutory Financing: An International Comparison Across Eight European Countries

Wees

Wammes

Westert

et al. 2015

Int J Health Policy Manag

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Background: Both rising healthcare costs and the global financial crisis have fueled a search for policy tools in order to avoid unsustainable future financing of essential health benefits. The scope of essential health benefits (the range of services covered) and depth of coverage (the proportion of costs of the covered benefits that is covered publicly) are corresponding variables in determining the benefits package. We hypothesized that a more comprehensive health benefit package may increase user costsharing charges. Methods: We conducted a desktop research study to assess the interrelationship between the scope of covered health benefits and the height of statutory spending in a sample of 8 European countries: Belgium, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland. We conducted a targeted literature search to identify characteristics of the healthcare systems in our sample of countries. We analyzed similarities and differences based on the dimensions of publicly financed healthcare as published by the European Observatory on Health Care Systems. Results: We found that the scope of services is comparable and comprehensive across our sample, with only marginal differences. Cost-sharing arrangements show the most variation. In general, we found no direct interrelationship in this sample between the ranges of services covered in the health benefits package and the height of public spending on healthcare. With regard to specific services (dental care, physical therapy), we found indications of an association between coverage of services and cost-sharing arrangements. Strong variations in the volume and price of healthcare services between the 8 countries were found for services with large practice variations. Conclusion: Although reducing the scope of the benefit package as well as increasing user charges may contribute to the financial sustainability of healthcare, variations in the volume and price of care seem to have a much larger impact on financial sustainability. Policy-makers should focus on a variety of measures within an integrated approach. There is no silver bullet for addressing the sustainability of healthcare. Implications for policy makers• Reduction of the scope of the benefit package and an increase of user charges has limited impact on the reduction of the volume and cost of care at the macro level. Supply constraints may have a much larger impact on reducing the volume of care and thus the long-term financial sustainability of public healthcare provision. • Policy-makers should focus on a variety of measures within an integrated approach, including considerations for services covered, costsharing arrangements, stimulating evidence-based practice, the monitoring and reduction of unwarranted variation, and control mechanisms for the price of healthcare services. Implications for publicCoverage for healthcare services funded by public revenues in our sample of 8 European countries is comparable and comprehensive, with only marginal differences. It is the c...

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Section: Variations In Volume and Pricementioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between the Scope of Essential Health Benefits and Statutory Financing: An International Comparison Across Eight European Countries

Wees

Wammes

Westert

et al. 2015

Int J Health Policy Manag

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“…The data used in this paper were collected in the context of the EU HealthBASKET project (Busse et al, 2007(Busse et al, , 2008 Schreyo¨gg et al, 2006;Schreyo¨gg et al, 2005). As part of the project, data on 10 common care episodes -including five in the outpatient and five in the inpatient setting -from nine countries (Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and Spain) were selected with the aim of developing a method for comparing costs that would allow cost variations within and between countries to be identified.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, healthcare costs have been compared across countries at an aggregate level as a way to determine health systems performance (Murray and Evans, 2003;Greene, 2004;Busse et al, 2007Busse et al, , 2008. In recent years, a number of additional applications have emerged for cross-country comparisons at a greater level of detail.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-country comparisons of costs: the use of episode-specific transitive purchasing power parities with standardised cost categories

et al. 2008

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SUMMARYInternational comparisons of healthcare costs are growing in importance for a number of different applications. The use of common approaches to converting costs such as GDP purchasing power parities (PPPs) often does not reflect price differences in healthcare in an appropriate manner. This means that new approaches need to be explored. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of using episode-specific PPPs (ESPPPs) to facilitate cross-country comparisons of healthcare costs and to compare this approach with other common approaches to conversion. Costs for five care episodes from hospitals in eight European countries were obtained from the EU HealthBASKET project. ESPPPs were created by using Fisher-type PPPs in combination with the Elteto¨-Ko¨ves-Szulc method at the episode level. Differences in ESPPPs among the five care episodes were discussed and compared with other common conversion approaches. We found that ESPPPs-reflected prices and resource use more accurately than conventional conversion approaches such as GDP PPPs and medical care PPPs. This was particularly evident for labour-intensive care episodes in which other conversion approaches revealed problems in the way that labour input had not been considered appropriately. The results demonstrate that ESPPPs are preferable to other common conversion approaches when international healthcare cost comparisons are performed.

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“…Многоуровневая система медицинской помощи в экономически развитых странах -это способ обслу-живания населения в общественном секторе здраво-охранения с использованием технологически ранжиро-ванной на уровни и методологически распределенной на последовательные периоды стандартизованной схе-мы лечения пациентов [5][6][7][8][9]. Ее применение позволяет на каждом из этапов обеспечить необходимый объем медицинской, оздоровительной или реабилитацион-ной помощи и при этом исключить использование лечебных ресурсов избыточного или недостаточного уровня [10][11][12].…”

Section: социальная педиатрия и организация здравоохраненияunclassified

Multilevel System of Medical Care to Children’s Population

Баранов¹,

Альбицкий²,

Терлецкая³

et al. 2014

Vopr. sovr. pediatr.

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Variability in healthcare treatment costs amongst nine EU countries – results from theHealthBASKET project

Cited by 85 publications

References 15 publications

The Relationship Between the Scope of Essential Health Benefits and Statutory Financing: An International Comparison Across Eight European Countries

The Relationship Between the Scope of Essential Health Benefits and Statutory Financing: An International Comparison Across Eight European Countries

Cross-country comparisons of costs: the use of episode-specific transitive purchasing power parities with standardised cost categories

Multilevel System of Medical Care to Children’s Population

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