The internalization context of private health service providers in Europe: Romanian market case study
Volintiru Mihai ()
Additional contact information
Volintiru Mihai: The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), Bucharest, Romania
Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, 2018, vol. 12, issue 1, 1038-1047
Abstract:
This paper looks at the opportunities and constraints of the private healthcare sector in Europe today. Using the case study of Romania, I explore the attractiveness of foreign and domestic private capital investments in companies that supply healthcare services. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, the private provision of healthcare services has been growing steadily, and there are clear signs in the common market that the liberalisation policies will only increase the attractiveness of such investment still. As large-scale investment projects like general hospitals require large amounts of upfront investment, it is only natural to assume that at least part of this capital will be obtained through internationalisation decision of foreign companies. This paper also presents in depth a comparative overview of the two most developed private healthcare provisions in Romania: dialysis centres and medical laboratories. Part of their success is due to their longstanding relationship with the National Health Insurances House. These medical services generally benefit from large scale public subsidies that support the delivery of private health care provision in Romania. The private providers of medical services in Romania have recorded a steady annual growth dynamics over the past years. In the case of private medical laboratories, the geographical distribution shows a heavy concentration on the main municipalities in Romania. This gives us a perspective on the limited ability of private providers to penetrate smaller markets without the incentive of public subsidies. The Romanian market has proved to be an attractive destination for foreign investors in the medical sector. This is driven in part by the quantitative limitations of the public sector that is struggling with an overload in urban areas, but also by the attractiveness of private health insurance packages offered by many private health care providers. The main international health care providers in Romania that constitute the case studies of this paper are: Medlife, Regina Maria, Medicover, Sanador and Gral Medical.
Keywords: investments; private sector; health care providers; Romania; standardization; market share; dialysis centres; medical laboratories (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/picbe-2018-0093 (text/html)
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:vrs:poicbe:v:12:y:2018:i:1:p:1038-1047:n:93
DOI: 10.2478/picbe-2018-0093
Access Statistics for this article
Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence is currently edited by Alina Mihaela Dima
More articles in Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().