 Do Private Patients have Shorter Waiting Times for Elective Surgery? Evidence from New South Wales Public HospitalsMeliyanni Johar and Elizabeth Savage () Economic Papers, 2010, vol. 29, issue 2, 128-142 Abstract: The Productivity Commission (2008) identified waiting times for elective surgery as a measure of governments’ success in providing accessible health care. At the 2007 COAG meeting, the Prime Minister identified reduction of elective surgery waiting times in public hospitals as a major policy priority. To date, the analysis of waiting time data has been limited to summary statistics by medical procedure, doctor specialty and state. In this paper, we look behind the summary statistics and analyse the extent to which private patients are prioritised over comparable public patients in public hospitals. Our empirical evidence is based on waiting list and admission data from public hospitals in NSW for 2004–2005. We find that private patients have substantially shorter waiting times, and tend to be admitted ahead of their listing rank, especially for procedures that have low urgency levels. We also explore the benefits and costs of this preferential treatment on waiting times. Date: 2010 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:econpa:v:29:y:2010:i:2:p:128-142 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Economic Papers is currently edited by Professor Guay Lim More articles in Economic Papers from The Economic Society of Australia Contact information at EDIRC. |
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