Regulated Competition in Healthcare Systems: Theory & Practice

This module will introduce you to ten specific preconditions for achieving efficiency and affordability in competitive healthcare markets. For each precondition, you will learn what the consequences could be if this precondition is not fulfilled. In addition, you will learn to use the preconditions to evaluate the progress of the implementation of regulated competition. Good luck and have fun!

Social health insurance markets typically include premium regulation to promote affordability of health insurance for people with expensive medical conditions. A side-effect of premium regulation is that it confronts consumers and insurers with incentives for risk selection. In this module you will learn about typical forms of risk selection and their welfare effects. Moreover, you will learn about tools for the regulator to mitigate selection problems. Have fun!

In this module the focus is on effective competition regulation as an important precondition for achieving efficiency in competitive healthcare markets. You will first learn about the basic principles of this type of regulation, after which you will learn about three key issues regarding competition regulation in healthcare. These issues are: (1) hospital merger control; (2) insurer monopsony power; and (3) the potential trade-off between integration, coordination and the use minimum volume standards on the one hand and competition on the other. Good luck and have fun!

In other videos about the preconditions for regulated competition, you’ve learned that in addition to consumers and insurers, providers of care should also be stimulated to spend resources wisely. Clearly, the extent to which this is the case depends on the way in which providers are paid for their services. This module therefore focuses on provider payment systems, and specifically on the design thereof. The core of the module consists of 7 videos divided over 3 lessons: (1) What drives provider payment reform? (2) Provider payment incentives & reform: what does the theory say? And (3) Value-based payment methods: types, design and effects. In contrast to the first lesson, lessons 2 and 3 start with a short introduction which you should read before you begin. Have fun!

Congratulations, you are about to complete this MOOC! By now, you should be able to explain the model of regulated competition in healthcare including its background, principles and preconditions for success. In this final module we summarize the primary takeaways from this MOOC and say goodbye.