HECON4220 ¨C Paying Providers of Health Care

Course content

This course provides knowledge of the basic theories and models of economic incentives in the field of payment schemes and revenue schemes for healthcare providers, including General Practitioners (GPs) and hospitals. These models are essential tools for understanding and discussing central aspects of health policy. ?Hence, the course equips students with the knowledge necessary to actively engage in discussions about healthcare payment systems.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

This course will provide knowledge about:

• Classifications of health systems based on organizational and financial relationships among insurers, providers, and patients.
• Theories on the characteristics of payment schemes, especially when there is asymmetric information about cost, quality, and patient severity between providers and insurers.
• Descriptions of revenue systems for hospitals and their characteristics from both private and social perspectives.
• Descriptions of payment systems for private physicians and their characteristics from both private and social perspectives.
• The role of waiting lists in healthcare rationing.

Skills

The course aims at providing you skills to:

• Model the characteristics of payment schemes in situations where there is asymmetric information about cost, quality, and patient severity between providers and insurers.
• Model revenue systems for hospitals, assessing their characteristics from both private and social perspectives.
• Model payment systems for private physicians, evaluating their attributes from both private and social perspectives.
• Model the role of waiting lists in the rationing of healthcare services.

Admission to the course

This course is only available for students at the following master programmes:

• Health Economics, Policy and Management (master)
• European Master in Health Economics and Management (master)

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Recommended previous knowledge

Students should have knowledge in math corresponding to ECON2200 ¨C Matematikk 1/Mikro 1 (MM1) (discontinued). There will be organized an elective week course in math at the start of the semester.

Overlapping courses

• 5 credits overlap with HME4302 ¨C Health Economics (discontinued).

Teaching

Teaching will be provided predominantly by the lecturer but time is also allocated for discussion.

A student who has completed compulsory instruction and coursework and has had these approved, is not entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework. A student who has been admitted to a course, but who has not completed compulsory instruction and coursework or had these approved, is entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework, depending on available capacity.

Examination

Written examination.

Examination and grading at The Faculty of Medicine

Examination support material

A?web based calculator?will be available for use in Inspera.

Language of examination

For students at Eu-HEM: English

For students at HEPAM: The problem set will be given in English. Answers can be given in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or in English.

Grading scale

Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.

Resit an examination

For Eu-HEM students:

An EU-hem student cannot present her or himself for the examination in a course more than two times. There will be held re-sits for EU-hem students who have failed an exam or who have legitimate absence (usually illness) in January and August. If you are entitled to a re-sit you must contact the student advisor via email no longer than one week after the result of the exam has been published.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.