Norwegian priority guidelines: estimating the distributional implications across age, gender and SES.
OBJECTIVE
Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority would seem to be a natural policy response to the growing gap between what can be done and what can be financed in the specialist health care sector. The paper examines the distributional consequences of this policy.


METHODS
450000 elective patients are allocated to priority groups on the basis of medical guidelines developed by one of the regional health authorities in Norway. Probit models are estimated explaining priority status as a function of age, gender and socioeconomic status.


RESULTS
Women and older people are overrepresented among patients with low priority. Conditional on age, women with low priority have lower income and less education than women with high priority. Among men below 50 years, patients with low priority have less education than patients with high priority.


CONCLUSIONS
Targeting hospital treatment at patients with high priority, though sensible from a pure medical perspective, may have undesirable distributional consequences.
Carlsen
Fredrik
F
Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. hodik_g@mac.org.il
Kaarboe
Oddvar M
OM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006292:Health Priorities / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D008875:Middle Aged; D009313:National Health Programs; D020380:Needs Assessment; D009664:Norway; D018579:Patient Selection; D012040:Regional Health Planning; D012042:Registries; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014850:Waiting Lists