Health Economics: Fundamentals and Flow of Funds - Hardcover

Getzen, Thomas E.

9780471586487: Health Economics: Fundamentals and Flow of Funds

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 047158648X ISBN 13: 9780471586487

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1996

This examination of the economic analysis of medical markets and the production of health traces the economic rationale and development of the medical care organization. It examines transactions between patients and health care providers to see how profits are made, costs covered, contracts written and regulations formed. It also uses a macroeconomic perspective to explore the dynamics of change within the health care system and to consider determinants of national health spending and the role of governments in public and private health.

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Synopsis:

The practical primer to one of the most dynamic fields in economics! Thomas Getzen, a leading academic and practitioner, has authored a complete primer for the economic analysis of medical markets and the production of health. Accessible to those with little or no economic background, this book includes a foreword by Nobel Laureate Kenneth J. Arrow and will interest anyone who wants to understand the issues and economic questions associated with allocating resources to medical care. Recognizing that the exchange of care for money is complex and not easily summarized, Getzen traces the economic rationale and development of medical care organizations as well as the economic and political factors that have influenced them. The book begins with a "flow of funds" approach to describing the incentives and organizational structure of the health care system. It then outlines the continuing evolution of Managed Care in the United States. The last section of the book uses a macroeconomics perspective to explore the dynamics of change within the health care system and to explicitly consider determinants of national health spending. From the Foreword by Kenneth J.

Arrow The economic problems of allocating resources to medical care have long been a major part of government economic policy, more in other countries than in the United States. The steady rise in the expenditures on medical care, out-stripping the rise in national income by a considerable margin, has brought these issues to the fore of public attention. Equally important has been the increase of explicit consideration of costs within the medical profession; the historically unwelcome trade-off between costs and treatment has come forcibly to the fore. The need for good education and good texts has become acute, and Professor Getzens book is a welcome attempt to meet this strongly felt need.

About the Author:

Thomas E. Getzen is Professor ofRisk, Insurance andHealthManagement atTempleUniversity and the founder and Executive Director of iHEA, the International Health Economics Association. After receiving an undergraduate degree in literature from Yale University, he worked for the U.S.P.H.S. Centers for Disease Control Venereal Disease program in New York and Los Angeles, and then obtained an MHA degree in Medical Care Organization and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Washington. Dr. Getzen s main research contributions have been in the areas of contracting, price indexes and forecasting of health care spending. His consulting work has included employee benefit negotiations, laboratory diagnostics, risk assessment, and capital financing for managed care. Dr. Getzen has been a visiting professor at the University of York (U.K.), theWharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Center for Health and Wellbeing of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has served on the boards of Covenant House, a local community health center in Northwest Philadelphia, MSI Inc, a venture–capital financed managed behavioral health care corporation, Catholic Health East (CHE), a multi–institutional health provider system with over 60 hospitals and nursing homes. Dr. Getzen has written more than 80 papers in the field and serves on the editorial board of the journal Health Economics.

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