The German hospital market has been subject over the past two decades to a variety of healthcare reforms. Particularly the introduction of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) in 2004 aimed to increase efficiency of hospitals. The objective of the paper is to review recent studies comparing the...

Over the past 20 years, most European countries have introduced DRGs or similar grouping systems as instruments for hospital reimbursement. This paper compares and analyzes the methods used to determine prices for inpatient care within DRGs or similar grouping systems employed in nine EU member...

Germany has recently introduced a system of Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) to engender more appropriate resource allocation. The following article describes the German DRG-system and the methodologies used to determine prices. It analyses the extent to which prices, or calculated cost weights,...

In many sectors of the health care system, prices at which providers are reimbursed by payers are not determined by the market mechanism, but rather by a defined administrative process. Depending on the sector, prices are set politically and are negotiated between different actors or are...

International comparisons of healthcare costs are growing in importance for a number of different applications. The use of common approaches to converting costs such as GDP purchasing power parities (PPPs) often does not reflect price differences in healthcare in an appropriate manner. This...

We investigated the effects of privatization on hospital efficiency in Germany. To do so, we obtained bootstrapped DEA efficiency scores in the first stage of our analysis and subsequently employed a difference-in-difference matching approach within a panel regression framework. Our findings...

We investigated the effects of privatization on hospital efficiency in Germany. To do so, we obtained bootstrapped data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency scores in the first stage of our analysis and subsequently employed a difference-in-difference matching approach within a panel regression...

<Emphasis Type="Bold">Background Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common life-shortening genetic disorder among Whites worldwide. Because many of these patients experience chronic endobronchial colonization and have to take antibiotics and be treated as inpatients, societal costs of CF may be high. As the disease...</emphasis>

The main argument for the ongoing privatization process is that privatization will lead to an increase in efficiency, which has been confirmed by a large number of studies. An important argument against privatization is that privatization may lead to employment reductions. In the hospital...

We investigated the effects of privatization on hospital efficiency in Germany. To do so, we obtained bootstrapped DEA efficiency scores in the first stage of our analysis and subsequently employed a difference-in-difference matching approach within a panel regression framework. Our findings...