TY - UNPB

T1 - Cost containment and managed care: Evidence from German macro data

AU - Ehlert, Andree

AU - Oberschachtsiek, Dirk

AU - Prawda, Stefan

PY - 2013/10

Y1 - 2013/10

N2 - The major German health care reforms undertaken since the late 1990s resulted in the adoption of selective contracting mechanisms in a formerly sectorally separated health care system. These reforms marked the launch of managed care in Germany that is expected to yield both a higher quality of care and cost containment. We investigate if managed care had an in fluence on the structure of health care expenditure in Germany during the start-up phase of managed care from 2004 to 2008. We focus on pharmaceutical spending by statutory sickness funds (i.e. German law- enforced health insurance). We followed a macroeconomic evaluation approach based on a regional panel data set in contrast to previous research and were thus able to control for a comprehensive set of regional and demographic variables. We discuss alternative model specifications and include a range of sensitivity analyses. Our results suggest that in contrast to public perception the share of managed care contracts has a positive impact on pharmaceutical spending.

AB - The major German health care reforms undertaken since the late 1990s resulted in the adoption of selective contracting mechanisms in a formerly sectorally separated health care system. These reforms marked the launch of managed care in Germany that is expected to yield both a higher quality of care and cost containment. We investigate if managed care had an in fluence on the structure of health care expenditure in Germany during the start-up phase of managed care from 2004 to 2008. We focus on pharmaceutical spending by statutory sickness funds (i.e. German law- enforced health insurance). We followed a macroeconomic evaluation approach based on a regional panel data set in contrast to previous research and were thus able to control for a comprehensive set of regional and demographic variables. We discuss alternative model specifications and include a range of sensitivity analyses. Our results suggest that in contrast to public perception the share of managed care contracts has a positive impact on pharmaceutical spending.

KW - Economics

KW - managed care

KW - health care expenditure

KW - pharmaceutical expenditure

KW - panel data

KW - german health care reform

M3 - Working papers

T3 - Working Paper Series in Economics

BT - Cost containment and managed care: Evidence from German macro data

PB - Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg

CY - Lüneburg

ER -