Little is known about the use of services in a preferred provider organization (PPO). We studied a preferred provider arrangement between Pacific Medical Center and employees of the City of Seattle. In the second 12 months of this program 8,529 subjects submitted at least one claim; of these, only 420 (4.9%) ever used the preferred provider. Those who used the PPO at least once differed signifi...

This paper develops a general model of physician behavior with demand inducement encompassing the two benchmark cases of profit maximization and target-income behavior. It is shown that when income effects are absent, physicians maximize profits, and when income effects are very strong, physicians seek a target income. The model is used to derive own and cross-price expressions for the response...

The hospital industry needs funds to refurbish physical facilities, upgrade clinical and information technologies, and rebuild financial positions weakened by past external challenges and unwise organizational strategies. The financial markets offer a marked contrast in capital access, as bond creditors remain skeptical while stock investors plunge back into the once-shunned industry. Ironicall...

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Were the ancients Greeks “racists” in the modern sense of the term “racist”? The terms ancient Greek “proto-racism”, tribalism (and/or racism) are used here to denote the abstract, narcissistic notion that not only the non-Greek barbarians, but also certain ancient Greek tribes (like the Macedonians, the Boeoteans etc.) should be excluded from the Hellenic community, for they were considered to...

Shelter Network is a nonprofit organization that delivers a range of services that meet the needs of homeless families and individuals in order to help them achieve stable housing and self-sufficiency. The agency began as a grassroots community effort to respond to the growing problem of homelessness and its relationship with its external community continues to play an important role in its fin...

The SchwartzReport tracks emerging trends that will affect the world, particularly the United States. For EXPLORE, it focuses on matters of health in the broadest sense of that term, including medical issues, changes in the biosphere, technology, and policy considerations, all of which will shape our culture and our lives.

Nonprofit hospitals are expected to provide benefits to their community in return for being exempt from most taxes. In this paper we develop a new method of identifying activities that should qualify as community benefits and of determining a benchmark for the amount of community benefits a nonprofit hospital should be expected to provide. We then compare estimates of nonprofits' current level ...

Recently proposed HMO regulations have involved mandates of two forms: (1) minimum quality standards, and (2) mandated increases in access to speciality care. I show that piecemeal regulation, which uses only one of either mandate (1) or (2), may decrease welfare for all HMO consumers. Under full regulation using both (1) and (2), if the minimum standard is set too low, say, due to political ba...