Differences in general practice initiated expenditures across Danish local health authorities--A multilevel analysis

Torben H. Sørensen, Kim R. Olsen and Dorte Gyrd-Hansen ()

Health Policy, 2009, vol. 92, issue 1, 35-42

Abstract: Objective To assess differences in expenditures of general practice services across local health authorities (counties).Methods A multilevel analysis of 2123 general practices nested within 15 counties is used to assess between county variations in general practice expenditures in year 2006. Schmidt and Sickles' fixed effect efficiency estimator is used to assess the potential for reducing expenditures (fee-for-service, prescriptions, and referrals).Results Expenditures associated with general practice constitute 38% of total health care expenditures. 42% of the variation in these expenditures is attributable to geographical location (county). Mean efficiency is estimated to 87% corresponding to a savings potential of 700 DKK per insured person. Referrals to specialised care are the main source of variation in GP initiated expenditures across the counties. Expenditures associated with out-patient referrals and referrals to practicing specialist are negatively correlated (pÂ

Keywords: Gate; keeping; Expenditures; Local; health; authorities; Efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(09)00045-1
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:92:y:2009:i:1:p:35-42

Access Statistics for this article

Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput

More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu () and ().