Suppliers who are better informed than purchasers, such as physicians treating insured patients, often have discretion over what to provide. This paper shows how, when the purchaser observes what is supplied but neither recipient type nor the actual cost incurred, optimal provision differs from what would be efficient if the purchaser had full information, whether or not the supplier can extract informational rent. The analysis is applied to, among other things, data on tests for coronary artery disease and to Medicare diagnosis-related groups defined by the treatment given, not just the diagnosis, illustrating the biases in provision that result.
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Paper provided by University of Oxford, Department of Economics in its series Economics Series Working Papers with number
221.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Chalkley, Martin & Malcomson, James M., 2000.
"Government purchasing of health services,"
Handbook of Health Economics,
in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 847-890
Elsevier.
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