Trial Lecture - time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Luigi Siciliani, University of York
- 2nd opponent: Senior Scientist Astrid Kiil, The Danish Center for Social Science Research
- Committee Chair: Professor Magne Nylenna, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Grete Botten
Principal Supervisor
Hans Olav Melberg
Summary
Financial incentives in the health care sector are one important tool that has been employed to achieve objectives such as better access to- and efficient use of resources. However, in order to effectively use financial incentives, there is a need for knowledge about the extent to which users and providers respond to the incentives. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the evidence base on the impact of financial incentives by examining responses to price changes in the Norwegian health care system. Using aggregated registry data for health care services, the studies estimate: i) the effect of price changes in co-payments for adolescents on their use of general practitioner services, and ii) the effect of price changes within activity-based financing for hospitals on their activity levels.
Overall, the findings in this thesis support the existing empirical evidence that financial incentives do affect behaviour. The results show that exempting adolescents from co-payments led to adolescents’ increased use of general practitioner services. The findings also indicated that hospitals supply more of the health services for which they receive higher payment. However, the increase in the price for day surgery did not stimulate the provision of day surgeries compared to inpatient surgeries. The findings from this thesis are relevant for both policy-makers and researchers who are interested in the further development and refinement of both demand-side and supply-side incentives to achieve health policy objectives such as improved access to- and efficient delivery of health care services.
Additional information
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