Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/77807 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Citation: 
[Journal:] Health Economics Review [ISSN:] 2191-1991 [Volume:] 1 [Issue:] 14 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2011 [Pages:] 1-14
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
We study the effects of balance billing, i.e., allowing physicians to charge a fee from patients in addition to the fee paid by Medicare. First, we show that on pure efficiency grounds the optimal Medicare fee under balance billing is zero. An active Medicare policy thus can only be justified when distributional concerns are accounted for. Extending the analysis by Glazer and McGuire, we therefore analyze the optimal policy from the patients' point of view. We demonstrate that, from the patients' perspective, a positive fee can be superior under balance billing. Furthermore, patient welfare can be lower if balance billing is prohibited. In particular, this is the case if the administrative costs of Medicare are large. However, we cannot rule out that prohibiting balance billing may be superior. Finally, we show that payer fee discrimination increases patient welfare if Medicare's administrative costs are high or if Medicare's optimal fee under balance billing implies lower quality for fee-only patients.
Subjects: 
physician reimbursement
price controls
Medicare
JEL: 
I11
I18
H51
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size
341.82 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.