Waiting Time Targets in Healthcare Markets: How Long Are We Waiting?

Huw David Dixon () and Luigi Siciliani ()

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: Waiting-time targets are frequently used by policy makers in the healthcare sector to monitor providers' performance. Such targets are based on the distribution of the patients on the list. We compare and link such distribution with the distribution of waiting time of the patients treated, as opposed to on the list, which is arguably a better measure of welfare or total disutility from waiting (although it can only be calculated retrospectively). We show that the latter can be estimated from the former, and viceversa. We also show that, depending the hazard function, one distribution may be more or less favourable than the other. However, empirically we .nd that the proportion of patients waiting on the list more than x months is a downward estimate of the proportion of patients treated waiting more than x months, therefore biasing downwards the total disutility from waiting.

Keywords: Waiting times; duration; targets. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Date: 2009-03

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Working Paper: Waiting-time targets in healthcare markets: How long are we waiting? (2009)
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