title: Contracts for health care and asymmetric information.
abstract: The paper presents a stylised model of contracting for a specific health service. The benefit of this service differs across patients. A purchaser, National Health Service (NHS, insurer) offers a contract to providers (hospitals, GP's), under the constraint of limited information about the provider's costs and the contract specifies the payment as a function of the number of cases treated. A number of features of the optimal contract are derived. Some of these are surprising: for example, the price per case generally increases with the efficiency of the provider.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, Heslington, UK. gd4@york.ac.uk
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Fraja
mesh_terms: D002017:Budgets; D003284:Contract Services / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004470:Economics, Medical; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational / Q000191:economics; D005194:Family Practice / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019451:Information Management; D008511:Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D017059:Models, Econometric; D013038:Specialization; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics*; D006113:United Kingdom